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Tokenized Equity Splits Into Two Models

Tokenized US equity split into two products this week, on a single ticker. Backpack's SPCX crossed 10,000 onchain holders six days after SpaceX's Nasdaq debut, more than three times xStocks' SPCXx on the same name. Coinbase announced plans for a 1:1 backed product with on-chain dividends. Ondo widened its synthetic catalog past 430 assets. The two backing models do different work for institutional balance sheets.

The CFTC-regulated perpetual futures lane is no longer theoretical. Kalshi did $5.5 billion in trading volume across two weeks, three days above $1 billion. CFTC staff release 9252-26 gave designated contract markets a no-action path to convert perpetual-style futures into true perpetuals. Coinbase and Kraken launched in the same window. US-onshore execution venues for the format now exist at scale.

Chris, The Defiant contributing editor, and Partner at Storaker Advisory

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TRADFI & FINTECH

Tokenized Equity Splits Into Two Models

For institutional treasuries deciding how to hold equity on-chain, the tokenized-stock category split into two products this week, on a single ticker. Backpack's SPCX gives the holder a redeemable share entitlement at a regulated EU issuer. Backed Finance's xStocks SPCXx and Ondo's catalog give the holder a synthetic claim against issuer reserves. SPCX is winning user growth. The synthetic structures still hold the TVL lead. Each model serves a different use case.

Backpack's SPCX crossed 10,000 onchain holders on Solana on Wednesday (June 17), six days after SpaceX's Nasdaq debut. Backed Finance's xStocks SPCXx sat near 3,000 holders per Solana Compass tracking on June 18. SPCX has done $350M in cumulative trading volume since its June 12 listing, with one Tuesday 24-hour window above $108M.

The structural difference is the redemption right. Backpack issues through Backpack EU AG under a Liechtenstein wrapper. Each token represents a share entitlement redeemable into the holder's brokerage account. Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante put it directly on X on June 17: "xstocks gives you a right to cash. Backpack gives you an actual right to redeem one to one to a security entitlement. One gives you cash and the other gives you a share."

Coinbase moved in the same direction on Tuesday. The exchange announced plans for tokenized US stocks backed one-to-one by actual shares, with automatic on-chain dividend distribution. The product was described as "no derivatives, no IOUs." Coinbase did not name the chain, custodian, or supported tickers. The product reaches non-US customers first in July.

Ondo Finance scaled the synthetic side. The protocol added 173 tokenized stocks and ETFs to Ondo Global Markets on Tuesday. The catalog now sits past 430 assets across Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain. The new names cover AI, robotics, quantum, defense tech, critical materials, and data center energy. Tokens are backed by issuer reserves and are not redeemable into the underlying share.

Ondo Global Markets holds $1B in TVL and over 70% of tokenized-stocks market share, per RWA.xyz tracking as of mid-June. Binance Research put the full tokenized-equity market at $5.5B mid-June, up from $2.23B at the start of 2026.

The two models do different work. Share-entitlement structures pair with broker-dealer custody, handle corporate actions on-chain, and give the holder a legal redemption claim into the share. A treasurer can underwrite that as a stock-equivalent for balance-sheet purposes. Synthetic catalogs add tickers faster, cover more names per integration, and plug into DeFi composability for collateralization or hedging. They serve a crypto-native trader who wants exposure to AMETEK or Symbotic without a brokerage account.

Last week's Backed Finance episode exposed the synthetic model's failure mode. Bybit, Binance, and Bitget Wallet canceled their xStocks SpaceX allocation campaigns when Backed could not source the underlying float. This week SPCX's holder data put a number on which structure users picked.

MARKETS

CFTC Perp Lane Is Now the Working Assumption

Onshore perpetual futures are now a working execution venue for US institutional capital. Four regulated launches in 18 days and Kalshi's $5.5B opening fortnight have settled the question. Traders building 2026 execution maps no longer need to route offshore for the format.

Kalshi disclosed $5.5B in cumulative perpetual futures trading volume across the first two weeks as of mid-June. Three days topped $1B in daily volume. Eleven crypto contracts are live, anchored by BTCPERP, which began trading June 3. The company said it is in talks with regulators to extend beyond crypto.

The regulatory mechanism arrived June 12. CFTC Division of Market Oversight staff release 9252-26 gave designated contract markets a no-action path to convert existing perpetual-style futures into true perpetuals. The relief expires June 30, bridging into the Commission's broader Policy Statement on Perpetual Contracts from late May.

The major exchanges launched on either side of 9252-26. Coinbase listed four thematic equity-index perpetuals on June 8 (AI10, China10, Defense10, Tech100), all cash-settled on MarketVector indices with no expiration and 8-hour funding. Kraken followed June 15 via its Bitnomial subsidiary, listing BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, and five other crypto contracts on the same funding model. Payward closed the $550M Bitnomial acquisition in May.

Global perpetual futures notional crossed $60 trillion in 2025, almost entirely on offshore venues. US-domiciled institutional capital that could not touch that volume two months ago now has four regulated venues across crypto and equity-index products.

WATCH THIS WEEK

$175M: Inside Morpho's Record Raise with Merlin Egalite

On The Defiant Podcast this week, Morpho co-founder Merlin Egalite walks Camila Russo through the protocol's $175 million Series B, one of the largest DeFi raises of 2026. The conversation maps how Morpho's vault architecture has become the institutional rail under products this issue tracks: Sentora's earn layer at Deel, Steakhouse Financial's confidential USDC yield vault with Zama on Ethereum, and a growing list of curator-led institutional vaults.

OTHER STORIES WORTH YOUR TIME

Congress Folds Fed CBDC Ban Through 2030 Into Bipartisan Housing Bill

Congressional negotiators folded a statutory Federal Reserve CBDC ban into the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, blocking any Fed-issued retail digital dollar until December 31, 2030. The text now heads back to the Senate floor. The bipartisan packaging is the durable bit. Republican CBDC restrictions have been live in House standalones for two cycles, but a housing-bill ride-along brings the prohibition into legislation Democrats are likely to support overall. With the GENIUS Act framework underwriting private dollar stablecoins, the public alternative now has a 4.5-year statutory off-ramp.

Sui Processes $65B in Stablecoin Transfers in Five Days After Zeroing Out Fees

Sui's gasless stablecoin design pushed transfer throughput to nearly $65 billion since June 10, recasting the Layer 1 as a fee-free settlement rail for institutional and agentic payments. The volume sits alongside Tron's TRX-paid USDT corridors as the cheapest stablecoin rails in production. Institutional payment architects now have working data on which chains can sustain fee-free transfers. The next question is which validator economics survive the model long-term.

Paradigm Leads $9M Round in Latin American Stablecoin App El Dorado

Paradigm led a roughly $9M round in El Dorado, the stablecoin-powered payments app with more than a million users across Latin America, extending the venture firm's push into dollar-rails for emerging markets. El Dorado lets Latin American users transact in USDC or USDT without holding local currency at a bank. The pattern matches what Western Union, Stripe and MoneyGram are building from the incumbent side. Paradigm picked the consumer-fintech-native variant.

BlackRock Launches BITA, a Covered-Call Bitcoin ETF Designed for Monthly Income

BlackRock listed the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BITA) on Nasdaq, overlaying a covered-call strategy on IBIT to generate monthly income while capping upside participation. The fund began trading on June 9. For institutional allocators that want bitcoin exposure inside an income mandate (insurance balance sheets, pension target-date funds, advisory accounts), BITA solves the BTC-has-no-yield objection through standard derivatives mechanics rather than DeFi or basis-trade complexity. The product brings options-based Bitcoin yield into a registered-fund wrapper.

Standard Chartered Initiates UNI Coverage With $100 2030 Price Target

Standard Chartered Global Research initiated coverage on Uniswap, framing the DEX as the trading hub for tokenized real-world assets and setting a $100 UNI price target for end-2030, roughly 40x current levels. Geoff Kendrick's thesis: as tokenized stocks, bonds and private assets migrate on-chain, Uniswap's role as the primary AMM layer compounds. The same week tokenized-equity issuers picked their backing models. StanChart's bull case is the corollary trade.

Even more this week:

Tribal coalition files amicus briefs to keep prediction markets off Native land: A coalition of federally recognized tribes argued CFTC preemption would nullify tribal-state gaming compacts. Filed in two federal cases targeting Kalshi and Polymarket.

Coinbase System Update bundles SEC-registered AI advisor with stock and ETF trading: Tuesday's bundle pushes Coinbase into wealth-management territory, with options on both equities and crypto arriving in the coming months.

Binance faces possible EU exit as Greek regulator prepares to reject MiCA license: Greece's Hellenic Capital Market Commission appears ready to deny Binance's MiCA application by July 1, per Reuters. Binance disputes the framing.

Zama, Morpho and Steakhouse open first confidential USDC yield vault on Ethereum: Fully homomorphic encryption goes into production yield on June 23, with cUSDC routed into Steakhouse Prime v2 on Morpho.

Matter Labs cuts staff and rotates zkSync team to institutional privacy platform Prividium: Top L2 team commits the entire organization to institutional privacy infrastructure over general-purpose rollup expansion.

Illinois enacts strictest US digital-asset transaction tax with SB 3019: Pritzker signed the first state-level transaction-based tax on everyday digital-asset activity. Crypto Council for Innovation pushing for an Article 3 line-item veto.

Blockchain Association brings member executives to Senate floor to preserve BRCA in CLARITY: The trade group met with more than half of Senate offices to defend the developer-protection provision before the August recess.

Bitcoin tops $67,000 on US-Iran deal and Strait of Hormuz reopening: The two-week high follows a Trump-declared deal complete announcement, with oil down 4% and $150M in short positions liquidated.

That wraps this week's Converge. Forward it to a peer building the on-chain financial system.

Tips, corrections, pushback? editorial@thedefiant.io.

See you next Friday.