Alpaca Controls 94% of Tokenized-Stock Market Despite Crypto's Decentralization Promise
In brief
- Alpaca custodies $1.5B backing tokenized equities, representing 94% of the market
- Self-clearing broker clears or custodies roughly 94% of tokenized US stocks and ETFs
- DTCC prepares to launch tokenization service in October
- SEC warns tokenized stocks expose investors to additional ownership and intermediary risks
- Clients include Binance, Kraken, Ondo, and Dinari
The dominance of one broker
Alpaca, a self-clearing broker-dealer founded in 2015, says it clears or custodies roughly 94% of tokenized US stocks and ETFs. The figure was measured as of July 2026 and counts only stocks backing tokens live and in circulation. By comparison, RWA.xyz measured roughly $1.85 billion in distributed tokenized-stock value in early July, suggesting Alpaca's share is substantial.
Alpaca's role extends beyond custody. The broker holds the underlying stocks one-to-one, executes and clears the trades, and runs real-time minting and redemption through its Instant Tokenization Network. It processes the corporate actions on those shares, meaning dividends, splits, and similar events, for every partner. The broker also supplies stock lending, short locates, and insured cash sweeps to the issuers and their market makers.
The client list includes Binance, Kraken, Ondo, and Dinari. On July 16, Alpaca raised $135 million led by Peak XV, with debt from Kraken's parent Payward and from BMO lifting the package to $435 million.
How tokenization works—and why it matters
Tokenized equities trade on crypto exchanges around the clock and move between buyers in minutes without touching a traditional brokerage account. Tokenized stocks trade across Solana, Ethereum, and several other blockchain chains. The issuers who built this market—Kraken's xStocks, Dinari, and Ondo—promised to bypass traditional finance's gatekeepers.
Yet the infrastructure still requires a custodian. Very few established brokers wanted that business when crypto platforms came asking. Alpaca filled the gap. It's also partnered with Broadridge to bring proxy voting and shareholder governance to tokenized equities, integrating traditional market plumbing into the blockchain layer.
Regulatory headwinds and competition ahead
The SEC warned that third-party stock tokens can expose investors to additional ownership and intermediary risks. That warning cuts to the heart of the concentration problem: a single point of failure.
"A market designed to reduce intermediaries has produced a dominant new one."
The DTCC is preparing to launch its own tokenization service in October. That move could fragment Alpaca's dominance—or entrench a different form of centralization. For now, though, Alpaca holds the keys to most of the market.
