Exchange Industry Trends and Research

The market for tokenized stocks has nearly tripled in six months, and beneath the excitement lies a competition of mutual substitution.

What truly pushed it towards shutdown is more like the disorder of internal governance, a sudden shift in top-level will, and some motivations that remain unclear to this day; these cannot be summarized by the word competition alone.

Against the backdrop of pressured trading volume, regulatory phase victories, and leaps in AI capabilities, the answer has begun to take shape.

"Coin-stock linkage" has evolved from the early stage of macro correlation and one-way penetration of emotional funds to the current 3.0 stage, where on-chain perpetual contracts provide extended trading hours and emotional signal value for traditional assets 24/7, and participate in Pre-IPO pricing.

As the user base expands to the scale of Binance today, relying on the personal efforts of the founder and a few employees to fill process gaps has become an unsustainable arrangement.

Against the backdrop of the gradual decline of the narrative around native crypto assets and the continuous shrinkage of liquidity, leading exchanges need new growth stories to maintain their platform valuations and market positions. Accessing the massive U.S. stock market is currently the most readily available and compelling answer.

"Why can they do it, but we can't?" This rhetorical question not only reveals the anxiety of traditional exchanges but also reflects the subtle and complex game between TradFi and DeFi after perpetual contracts have shifted from being gambling tools to global price discovery infrastructure.

Understanding the true value of a license is the foundation for assessing the long-term sustainability of an exchange.

Coinbase has a real opportunity to grow into a $300 billion company by 2031, driven not just by its exchange business, but also by its position as the top winner in the stablecoin and payment processing sectors.

Is this ice-breaking a test or the beginning of an era?