According to Woofun AI, the market value of packaging stocks exploded in the year ending September 30, increasing 7.6 times, and reaching a total scale of 3.14 billion US dollars. The core driving force of this market phenomenon is not the rise in stock prices, but the discrepancy between the 38% drop in Circle (CRCL.US) stock price and the 85x increase in token supply by issuers, which is a typical epitome of this structural change.
The divergence between supply and demand has become a key variable that dominates market capitalization growth. In terms of existing tokens, the 120 tokens that were launched a year ago added $1.89 billion in supply, while share price fluctuations during the same period erased only $121 million in value; the 53 additional tokens contributed $995 million. The new supply of tokens in stock accounted for 68% of the annual increase, indicating that market expansion mainly comes from the supply side. Looking at different calibers, the package size used in this article was US$3.14 billion at the end of the year, 7.6 times that at the beginning of the year; if the company's own shares issued on the chain are included, the widest caliber end is US$3.21 billion, which is 5.0 times that of the beginning of the year. By any measure, the market has grown at least fivefold.
The fall in stock prices did not curb the surge in supply; on the contrary, it created a contrarian expansion on some of the targets. Of 119 stocks and ETFs that had tokens at the beginning and end of the year, 60 shares fell in price, and the supply of 58 of them is still growing. Strategy (MSTR.US) shares fell 52%, but its token supply increased 54 times, which is very representative. The data shows that among the 25 largest tokenized stocks, when the stock price falls 10% or more in a single week, the median weekly supply increase is 4.9%; when the stock price moves less than 5% in a single frequency, this figure is only 1.4%. Each quarter's added value was higher than the previous quarter, peaking at $1.24 billion in the third quarter, showing that capital was more active in gaining exposure through tokenization during periods of declining prices.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the launch of the exchange has become a strong catalyst for market capitalization growth, and its effects far exceed regulatory actions. On February 24, 2026, Ondo listed its tokenized shares and ETF on Binance Alpha; on June 11, Binance launched bStocks trading; and on July 1, Robinhood (HOOD.US) announced its public chain and stock tokens. In the week following each of these dates, the packaging market value increased by 7.7% to 10.1%, all three weeks entering the first fifth of the year's 359 seven-day window. By contrast, the SEC's move gave less of a boost to market capitalization. On December 11, 2025, SEC staff issued a letter to DTC; on March 18, the Commission approved Nasdaq's tokenization deal. The week after the above date, and the week after the September 17 exemption, market capitalization increased between 2.6% and 2.7%, below the weekly median of 3.9%. The rules determine who can enter the US market, but this year's supply growth closely follows the pace of exchange launches.
Increased competition among issuers has reshaped the market pattern and cost structure. On June 30, 2025, Backed launched xStocks on Kraken and Bybit; on December 2, 2025, Kraken announced that it would acquire the company. Ondo is sold through Binance Alpha and Bitget. bStocks can only be minted and redeemed through Binance, and its share rose from zero in June to a quarter of the encapsulated market capitalization, and the first Binance bStocks to reach the $1 billion milestone.
Ondo's token market capitalization grew 3.4 times in one year, but its market share dropped from 70% to 31%. xStocks grew tenfold, and bStocks took a quarter of the market within four months of launch. The three major publishers are now sharing this market, which was once dominated by Ondo. In terms of cost, Backed charges up to 0.50% for SpyX, and the SPY ETF (SPY.US) itself has 0.0945% of annual costs. Ondo reserves price differences and does not publish fixed spreads.
Binance lists zero commissions, zero escrow fees, zero management fees, and zero share-to-token fees for bStocks. Trading spreads and network fees are charged separately. Alpaca Securities holds the underlying securities for Ondo and bStocks, and Backed also lists Alpaca as one of SpyX's custodians. The market value in circulation divided by the total number of holder addresses dropped from $5325 on September 30, 2025 to $682 on September 30, 2026. The number of holders increased 59x, while the market capitalization only increased 7.6x.
As of September 30, each recorded coin held by Ondo corresponds to a market value of about $2,100, while Robinhood (HOOD.US) is only $121, which is about 17 times the latter. Ondo also allows eligible individuals and institutions to mint and redeem upon completion of admission, subject to jurisdiction restrictions. Over the same period, the daily turnover rate rose from 18% a year ago to 29% in September 2026. Some tokens, such as META (META.US), have a daily turnover rate of 104%, while other STRC (STRC.US) preferred stock tokens, such as Strategy (MSTR.US), have a turnover rate of only 0.6%.
The token transaction price is highly anchored to the corresponding stock price, but the liquidity characteristics are fragmented. Among the ten largest tokens in the third quarter, the median gap between the closing price of the token and the stock price was 8 basis points, and 90% of the gap was within 24 basis points. Token prices combine tokens from various issuers of the same stock, so lightly traded tokens may show outdated prices. When all stock exchanges were closed, these tokens were still being traded, revealing a lack of liquidity. Every Saturday and Sunday in the third quarter, the volume was approximately 45% of the weekday volume. During these closed periods, the coin's trend was in line with Monday's opening direction in 59% of cases; by Monday's pre-market, the hourly price consistency reached 95%.
The sample included only ten large-cap stocks over 12 weekends, and these stocks often rose and fell at the same time. In September 2026, stock perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid's XYZ market traded an average of $1.43 billion per day, compared to $808 million in tokenized stocks. These two products do not provide the same exposure: perpetual contracts are settled in US dollars and do not hold shares; tokens are the right to claim managed shares. Token turnover increased 76% month-on-month in September, and the ratio between the two fell back to a peak of less than 9.6 times in July at the end of the month. The SEC announced this exemption on September 17, allowing new trading venues to trade tokenized US stocks until September 17, 2031, and only accept tokens with share voting rights and dividends.
Offshore encapsulated stocks do not have voting rights and dividends are reinvested, so they remain in the offshore market. Each trading venue must issue a notice 30 days prior to opening, with the earliest opening date being October 17, 2026. Ondo has already issued two types of tokens at the same time. On July 2, 2026, Ondo launched an American token linked to the BlackRock S&P 500 ETF (IVV.US) and Micron (MU.US), which will be issued by its own transfer agency. Its holders enjoy shareholder rights in US brokerage accounts, including proxy voting through Broadridge.
Future market size predictions show that distribution channel expansion is more critical than stock market performance. Compared to $152 trillion of listed stocks, stocks and ETF tokens only account for 0.0021%, and every 0.1% of this market is equivalent to $152 billion, which is nearly 50 times the size of the encapsulated market. Circle (CRCL.US) tokens account for 1.5% of the company's market capitalization, which is about 710 times the overall market share. According to a conservative estimate, encapsulated stocks will reach $63.6 billion by December 2030, up from $3.14 billion on September 30, 2026.
This scenario requires that the annual rate of net token issuance maintain a 50% annual increase, and the underlying share price increase by 5% per year. The initial issuance rate was estimated at $4.28 billion per year, based on data from the last two quarters. The slower scenario assumes that the distribution rate and price remain the same, reaching $21.3 billion; the faster scenario assumes that the issuance rate doubles each year and the price rises 10% to reach $171.3 billion. The central scenario assumes that distribution channels continue to expand, but the intention is not to continue the recent acceleration. The central scenario requires a net increase of $5.8 billion in 2027 and a net increase of $19.7 billion in token units in 2030, all priced at September 2026 prices.
With an annual price increase of 5%, a flat issuance rate could generate $26.2 billion. With an annual price increase of 5%, reducing the rate of issuance from 50% to 25% would reduce the 2030 results from $63.6 billion to $41.2 billion. If issuance growth remains 50%, a flat price path would give $51.7 billion, and a 10% annual price increase would give $77.5 billion. These ranges indicate that distribution channels and continued issuance momentum are more worthy of attention than the assumption that the stock market is bullish. Replacing the last two quarters with the estimated annual circulation volume would reduce the central scenario to $42.2 billion; using only the most recent quarter would raise it to $77.8 billion.
Meanwhile, at September 2026 prices, the 2027 path requires an additional approximately $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion per quarter. These revision thresholds are at the discretion of the editors. A new trading venue is only really important if its distribution momentum continues beyond the launch week. Shares issued by the company itself were counted separately, totaling US$476 million on September 30; their shareholders' rights and distribution methods were different from encapsulated shares, and the recording time was short, which was insufficient to apply the same issuance assumptions. Compared to the $152 trillion reference value for listed stocks, the central scenario for encapsulated stocks still only accounts for about 0.042%. This shows that although the current market size is small, tokenized stocks can be expected to become a supplementary channel for traditional capital markets through continuous distribution expansion in the context of improved exchange infrastructure and a gradually clear regulatory framework.