Bitget has launched Stock+, a feature it says lets users buy and directly own real US-listed shares using stablecoins, positioning the product squarely against the tokenized-stock model that dominates the sector.
Bitget describes Stock+ as a way to buy US stocks directly with USDC and other digital assets, with ownership of the underlying shares executed through regulated brokers. Holders are eligible for cash dividends and stock-split adjustments, the company said, and trading is synced to US pre-market, regular, and after-hours sessions.
That framing is a deliberate break from how most of the sector sells equities. Tokenized-stock products from rivals explicitly disclaim ownership: Binance says its bStocks are not shares, Kraken says xStocks confer no ownership, and Robinhood’s EU tokens are structured as derivative contracts. The SEC’s January 2026 staff statement made the same distinction, cautioning that third-party tokenized products can deliver price exposure without equity or voting rights. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen leaned on that contrast, arguing that access matters but real ownership matters more.
Why now: The $1B SpaceX refund
The timing is not incidental. Bitget was among the crypto venues that rushed SpaceX-linked products around the rocket maker’s June IPO, part of a wave in which exchanges relying on the shared xStocks intermediary had to cancel tokenized IPO campaigns and refund more than $1 billion after xStocks could not secure allocations from underwriters. Across that rush, at least eight platforms packaged SpaceX exposure, with Binance alone drawing $557 million in USDC deposits before the cancellations.
The episode exposed a specific weakness: an exchange’s promise to customers was only as good as a third party’s relationship with IPO underwriters. A model built on direct broker execution, rather than a shared tokenization layer, reads as Bitget’s answer to that intermediary-dependency risk. It also builds on the Stocks 2.0 push from early June, when its Reality platform began issuing tokenized stocks through licensed brokers tied to Nasdaq and NYSE; that rToken line has since passed $50 million in assets across 500-plus listed stocks and ETFs.
What the announcement leaves out
The release is thinner where it counts. It names no broker and specifies no eligible jurisdictions; a notable omission given that every comparable product blocks US, UK, Canadian, and Australian users, making it near-certain Stock+ is unavailable to American customers despite offering American stocks. Bitget itself is registered in Victoria, Seychelles, outside the major onshore regulatory regimes, which sharpens the question of what “regulated brokers” means in practice and where.
It is also selectively quiet on rights. Bitget touts dividends and split adjustments but does not mention voting, the defining marker of registered shareholder status that Coinbase explicitly claims for its tokenized equities. That silence leaves open whether “ownership” here means full shareholder standing or economic exposure with a custodian holding the shares. Stock+ trading fees start at 0.1%, cut by half promotionally through August 31.
The onshore market is formalizing—without these users
Bitget’s offshore pitch arrives as the US picture slowly opens. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s January 2026 staff statement began drawing lines around tokenized securities; the agency is developing an innovation-exemption sandbox, and Nasdaq and NYSE have won approval to pilot tokenized equities, NYSE outlining a platform built for 24/7 trading, fractional shares, instant settlement, and stablecoin funding.
The DTCC is separately coordinating a tokenization push with more than 50 firms, with pilot trades due to begin in July. The irony is pointed: as onshore rails move toward the always-on, stablecoin-funded access crypto exchanges pioneered, offshore venues like Bitget still cannot legally serve the American users whose stocks they list, a gap Senator Elizabeth Warren has pressed the SEC over on investor-protection grounds.
Every exchange is becoming a brokerage
Stock+ lands in the middle of an industry-wide land grab. Binance, Kraken, Bybit, Gemini, Robinhood, and Coinbase are all folding US equities into crypto accounts, betting that stablecoin-funded, around-the-clock stock access becomes the default for a generation that started on crypto apps. Kraken’s xStocks alone has cleared more than $25 billion in volume since June 2025, while Citi’s June forecast projects $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030 in its base case, roughly $2.6 trillion of which are US equities.
Whether real ownership proves a durable edge or just sharper marketing will hinge on details Bitget has not disclosed: which broker holds the shares and who is actually allowed to buy.
