Telegram Joins $1T Tokenized Equities Race With 60+ Listed Stocks and ETFs

telegram:- Equities are quickly emerging as the next major frontier in the booming $35 billion tokenized asset market. What started as a niche blockchain experiment has now become a full-fledged competition between major exchanges and Web3 platforms.

From Gemini’s initial pilot of tokenized securities to blockchain networks like BNB Chain and Solana expanding into offering tokenized RWA, the transition to on-chain equities is accelerating. Now, in a move that signals the industry’s entry into the consumer product mainstream, Telegram is also joining the fray. Here’s how

Telegram wallet launches tokenized stocks

Earlier this month, Telegram’s chief growth officer for wallets, Irina Takina, announced that the company would be entering the organized stock market. On October 1, Telegram announced a partnership with Kraken and Backed Finance AG to offer users tokenized stocks and ETFs through the app’s built-in wallet.

Less than four weeks later, on October 27, the company officially opened trading in over 60 tokenized stocks and ETFs to its millions of users. The rollout, which Telegram describes as a full launch rather than a pilot, represents one of the fastest time-to-market timelines in the tokenization space, going from “idea to general availability in just a few weeks,” in Takina’s words.

This new feature allows users to buy fractional shares of major global stocks, from Tesla to Nvidia, for as little as $1. While providing access to U.S. stocks to investors around the world, the $1 dollar amount stands in stark contrast to the minimum ticket sizes typical of brokerage accounts. Assets are represented as tokenized versions of the underlying stocks and ETFs. The wallet makes them compliant and allows them to trade through Backed Finance’s regulated infrastructure and Kraken’s exchange connectivity.

All transactions take place within Telegram’s wallet, an in-app encryption and payments layer built around the Open Network (TON) blockchain. For users, this means investing is as easy as sending a message or sticker. Telegram hopes the interface will make finance “as intuitive as chatting.”

Also read: Who is generating most of crypto’s $20 billion in revenue?

Competition for 1% share of the stock market

Telegram’s entry into tokenized stocks signals a bullish signal for the sector, but there is still a long road ahead. According to a recent Block of Fame report, the total amount of stocks tokenized on-chain is currently only $686.9 million, which is only 0.0007% of the global stock market. Still, the numbers are enough to ignite the race. Every player, from Web3 startups to traditional fintechs, now seems determined to capture even 1% of the world’s $100 trillion stock market.

For example, Ondo Finance recently named Chainlink as its official oracle provider for tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with the aim of improving the way financial data moves across blockchain networks.

Chainlink provides custom price feeds for over 100 tokenized stocks on Ondo’s platform, including US-listed stocks and ETFs. With the launch of tokenized stocks by PancakeSwap, the platform has also been extended to the BNB Chain.

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