Is crypto moving away from crypto? Yes and no.

“We don’t see it as a move away from crypto,” said Gracy Chen, the Chinese CEO Of Bitget with an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “Crypto remains the foundation of our business and continues to generate the majority of trading activity on Bitget. What’s changing is investors’ expectations of what a modern exchange should offer.”

The company, whose chief executives are mostly based in the Seychelles, says it brought in more than 50,000 traders and generated over $670 million in cumulative trading volume by allowing for UTAs. “Investors are increasingly looking beyond crypto without leaving the digital asset ecosystem,” Chen said. “Financial markets are converging. Investors no longer want separate destinations for crypto, equities, commodities and other assets.”

As an example of crypto moving beyond crypto, around 40% of Bitget’s trading volume comes from non-crypto assets. 

Stock Tokenization Might be Only Growth Market for Crypto

Tokenized stocks are designed to provide 1:1 economic exposure to the performance of the underlying security, instead of direct legal ownership of the shares themselves. That means if the price of the underlying stock moves, the value of the token is designed to move with it. However, tokenized shares are not the same as being a bonafide shareholder.  

Bitget explicitly says their “rToken” holders do not become registered shareholders, do not appear on Apple’s shareholder register and generally lack voting and direct shareholder rights. 

Solana reached $5.77 billion in total tokenized asset volume during the second quarter of 2026, according to The Kobeissi Letter, driven heavily by record-breaking demand for on-chain equities and 24/7 market access. 

The OKX exchange launched more than 40 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs in July, including Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100-linked ETFs. They trade around the clock against USDT in the same account customers use for crypto. The initial targeted markets include Asia, the Middle East, Turkey and the former Soviet states opposed to Western investors. 

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a member of the OKX board, was on Fox Business on July 20, and said “The biggest misconception was that crypto was seen as tokens and memes. The real contribution of crypto is not that. It is the financial infrastructure, the technology that they developed.”

This is as close to saying that crypto is no longer for Bitcoin.

Why Tokenized Stocks Are Surging

Tokenization of U.S. securities basically sells access to the U.S. stock market to anybody with an account on a fintech exchange. Whether or not they believe they are real shareholders is another matter. For sure, demand for tokenization will drive demand for American stocks because the companies offering the tokenization are supposed to own those stocks they are digitalizing for their buyers.

“As the volume of these assets grows, so does the need for a better understanding of the different forms that tokenized securities can take, especially as regulators begin to clarify their own positions on the subject,” he said. 

Critics Say Risks Underestimated

Bitget, Bybit and Binance all consider continuous trading and greater access a common good. But House Financial Affairs Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif) says it is “gamification” of the free market, only with much weaker guardrails. 

Her take is not isolated.

“Tokenized securities must achieve success by delivering real innovation and efficiency to market participants, rather than through self-serving regulatory arbitrage,” he said, accusing the crypto exchanges of “bending the rules.” Berger told the Commission not to allow token sellers “to profit simply by avoiding the Commission’s time-tested framework for protecting the interests of retail and institutional investors.”

The World Federation of Exchanges, representing major traditional exchanges and clearing houses globally, is also a solid “no” on this new market. The Federation said in a paper published last year that these tokens “mimic” equities “without supplying equivalent rights or safeguards.”

The Race to Become the Universal Exchange 

For cryptocurrency exchanges, the market is heading into tokenization or bust. Bitcoin and the top alt-coins are not enough to provide these exchanges with any longevity. Seed financing and deeper investment rounds are being led by investors who are thinking beyond what exchanges can add new cryptos to the mix; cryptos that are not performing as well anymore as the general stock market. 

And so crypto exchanges are either offering traditional finance options, or are busy creating a parallel global market in instruments that look and move like U.S. stocks, but may not convey stock ownership, shareholder rights or the protections of regulated equity markets. 

Does nonstop trading deepen the stock market, or divide liquidity among disconnected venues with different prices, rights and protections?

The crypto industry’s next growth is unlikely to be another cryptocurrency. The growth story may be turning the entire traditional investment universe into crypto-compatible products. 

Her vision is an industry-wide vision now.

When Kraken launched tokenized-equity perpetual futures in February 2026, Mark Greenberg, Kraken’s global head of consumer, said, “This is what it looks like when traditional markets are rebuilt for a crypto-native, always-on world.”

The writer of this article is invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. Artwork created by the author using Canva.

Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.