TOKEN 2049

Robinhood

would

Tokenized equities will be a big benefit to traditional markets, but may not be a boon for the crypto industry that others have predicted, says Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly.
“There’s no doubt it has a big effect on TradFi,” Hadick told Cointelegraph at the TOKEN 2049 conference in Singapore. “They want 24/7 trading, it’s better for their economics.”
However, he saw unclear benefits for major crypto players in the real-world asset tokenization space, such as Ethereum.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-blockchain-stock-trading-tokenized-equities-crypto" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">reportedly developing</a> a plan to allow blockchain versions of stocks to trade on crypto exchanges after many financial institutions pushed the regulator to allow for always-open markets.
Hadick said that the institutions “don’t want to be directly on these general-purpose chains,” giving <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/robinhood-q2-crypto-revenue-doubles-ceo-touts-tokenization-plan" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Robinhood</a> and Stripe as examples of those building their own blockchains.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 “They don’t want to share the economics. They don’t want to share block space with memecoins. They want to be able to control things like privacy [and] who the validator set is, they want to be able to control what is happening in their execution environment.”
</blockquote>
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 <img alt="Stocks, RWA, RWA Tokenization" src="https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2025-10/01999e39-b751-7701-9b13-0e656f6346f2" title="">
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 Rob Hadick speaking to Cointelegraph at TOKEN 2049. Source: Andrew Fenton/Cointelegraph
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<h2 id="institutions-want-their-own-control">Institutions want their own control</h2>
Hadick said that if tokenized stocks use <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-s-peerdas-key-l2-scaling-vitalik-buterin" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">layer-2 networks</a>, it creates “leakage” as value may not flow back to Ethereum or the broader crypto ecosystem as much as hoped.
If financial institutions build their own layer-1 blockchains, it would become a “little less clear” how value would flow into the rest of the crypto ecosystem.&nbsp;
Several private permissioned blockchains were launched and failed in previous years, but hybrid chains, where the company has its own control but the option to be permissionless, are where most institutions are at the moment, he said.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
 “They want their own L1s and L2s, but they want an environment that they control.”
</blockquote>
Hadick’s outlook is contrary to the current narrative spearheaded by the likes of Fundstrat’s <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitmine-bit-digital-ethereum-treasury-race-2025" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Tom Lee</a>, VanEck CEO <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/vaneck-ceo-calls-ethereum-the-wall-street-token" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Jan van Eck</a>, and Consensys founder <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/consensys-founder-predicts-100x-ether-surge-as-wall-street-adoption-grows" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Joseph Lubin</a>, who think that Wall Street and <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/finance-sector-group-urges-sec-to-reject-exemption-for-tokenized-stocks" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">TradFi</a> moving onchain will have massive benefits for Ethereum, which could help to lift the wider market.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2 id="sec-pushes-forward-on-tokenized-equities">SEC pushes forward on tokenized equities&nbsp;</h2>
A number of fund issuers and exchanges, such as VanEck and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), have recently met with the SEC to discuss tokenized equities.
Related: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-blockchain-stock-trading-tokenized-equities-crypto" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SEC weighs plan to allow blockchain-based stock trading amid crypto push: Report</a>
In September, the Nasdaq <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/nasdaq-asks-sec-for-rule-change-to-trade-tokenized-stocks" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">filed</a> for a rule change to allow it to list and trade tokenized stocks.&nbsp;
Tokenized stocks are a nascent sector, representing a tiny fraction of the total onchain value of real-world assets, with only $735 million, or 2.3% of the market share, <a href="https://app.rwa.xyz/stocks" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">according</a> to RWA.xyz.&nbsp;
Magazine: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/ethereum-founder-eth-move-crypto-index-hashdex-etf-xrp-solana-hodlers-digest/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">ETH co-founder moves $6M of ETH, crypto index ETF expands: Hodler’s Digest</a>
Additional reporting by Andrew Fenton.

SEC’s tokenized stock push has unclear benefits for crypto: Dragonfly Exec

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