Update (June 23, 2025 at 10:02 PM UTC): This article has been updated to state that Backed created the xStocks platform.
DeFi Development Corp., a Solana treasury company formerly known as Janover, announced plans to tokenize its shares through a partnership with crypto exchange Kraken.
According to a Monday announcement, the company will use xStocks, a tokenization platform created by Backed, to bring its shares onchain. Kraken announced a partnership with xStocks in May, promising to offer investors tokenized shares of US-listed companies such as Apple, Tesla and Nvidia to users in other regions. The platform is built on the Solana blockchain.
“We view the tokenization of our stock as a DeFi Lego block, one that developers and institutions can build on top of,” Joseph Onorati, CEO of DeFi Development Corporation, said in a statement.
DeFi Development’s share price rose more than 3% during the early hours of the Nasdaq trading session before paring gains. At the time of this writing, the stock is up 0.6% on the day, trading at $25.03.
DeFi Development Corp shares intraday performance on June 23. Source: Google Finance
Asset tokenization involves issuing traditional financial instruments, such as stocks, as tokens on a blockchain. These tokens can be fractionalized, letting investors own a portion of an asset. They can also be transferred peer-to-peer and traded at any time on blockchain protocols.
According to RWA.xyz, the tokenization of stocks remains a small segment compared to other assets. Of the total real-world asset (RWA) market cap of $24.3 billion, tokenized stocks make up just $365 million or 1.5%.
Kraken is not the only company planning to offer tokenized stocks to non-US investors. In May, a report revealed that Robinhood is building a blockchain network to offer trading of US securities to European investors.
In 2021, Binance hinted at a similar initiative but ultimately halted the plans due to regulatory challenges in several countries.