Solana back on top in tokenized equities with 31 percent of the week: What investors need to know

Solana carried the single largest share of trading in tokenized equities again over the past week: around 31 percent of weekly volume across all blockchains, ahead of BNB Chain with 26 percent, Robinhood's blockchain with 25 percent and Base with 18 percent. The figures come from data provider Blockworks, cited by CoinDesk. For Solana it is the first weekly lead in 14 weeks, after Robinhood had led for six weeks running.

The interesting part is less the ranking than what this trading actually is. Buying a tokenized Tesla or Nvidia share through a Solana address does not buy a share. It buys a certificate issued by a company that tracks the share price. That sounds like a technicality, and in Germany it decides the tax burden, what is left if the issuer goes insolvent, and whether the provider may sell the product to retail clients at all.

Solana carries the largest share of tokenized equity trading again

The weekly number is only one of several measures, and the sources measure different things. Blockworks counts the share of weekly volume across all blockchains and arrives at about 31 percent for Solana. Crypto Briefing reports a share of around 65 percent for a single day in the week of October 11, based on volume at decentralised exchanges. Both figures stand side by side because they do not count the same thing: a daily figure swings more than a weekly one, and decentralised exchange volume leaves out centralised platforms such as Robinhood. Presenting either number as Solana's market position rounds off reality.

The order of magnitude of the overall market is not in dispute. Across all blockchains, weekly volume came to just under $3 billion on the same surveys, with volume on decentralised exchanges at $12.4 billion year to date through early October. The stock of tokenized equities on Solana peaked in mid-September at $684 million. Crypto Briefing puts the number of wallets holding such tokens in a range of 727,000 to 850,000. Most of the activity on Solana is concentrated at the decentralised exchange Raydium, with 63 to 70 percent.

For a sense of scale: daily equity turnover at Deutsche Börse is regularly above these weekly figures. Tokenized equity trading is a small, fast-growing side market, not a competitor to the regulated floor. That matters for perspective, because the products nevertheless arrive with the promise of being tradable around the clock.

What an xStock is in law: a bearer note rather than a share

The most widespread product on Solana is the xStocks range from Backed Finance, a firm that now belongs to Kraken. As set out in our October 14, 2026 article on tokenized equities as collateral, these tokens are in law tracker certificates in the form of bearer notes. The base prospectus was approved by the Liechtenstein financial market authority and subsequently passported into the European Economic Area.

A bearer note is a document in which an issuer promises the holder a payment. Applied to an equity token, that means you hold a claim against Backed Finance, the size of which is measured by the price of the underlying share. You do not own the share itself. The same construction appears in other providers' products, among them the bStocks from the Binance group, which according to the provider are to be backed one for one by the underlying share in regulated custody.

MiFID II instead of MiCA: why the crypto regulation does not apply here

For crypto investors in Germany, the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets has been the familiar framework since 2024. That regulation does not apply here. It expressly excludes financial instruments from its scope, and a token built as a certificate or a note is a financial instrument. The European markets in financial instruments directive, MiFID II, applies instead, together with securities trading and prospectus law.

The practical consequence is concrete. A provider holding only a crypto licence under the crypto-asset regulation may not sell such products to retail clients. It needs authorisation as an investment firm. Kraken opened xStocks to clients in the European Economic Area on exactly that basis. Which trading venues operate in Germany under which licence is therefore the first question before the first purchase.

That the distinction is no paper tiger is shown by how far behind the traditional houses are. Morgan Stanley has pushed its own launch of equity tokens back to 2027, as we reported; in Germany the bank does not sell such tokens to retail clients in any case. We set out the background in our article on the Morgan Stanley delay.

Where investors in Germany can trade tokenized equities

Access is patchy, and that is the most common source of misunderstanding. Kraken offers xStocks in the European Economic Area. On 360X, a platform supervised by BaFin, a small number of names have been tradable against stablecoins since February, five in concrete terms. Robinhood's tokens on US equities are not readily accessible in Germany. Binance accepts bStocks as collateral in cross and portfolio margin accounts, but requires a suitability assessment at the lower tiers.

Then there is the decentralised route through a Solana wallet and an exchange such as Raydium. There is no entry check there, but no investor protection either: no advice, no suitability assessment, no deposit guarantee and no German paying agent. Taking that route means trading a security without the safeguards that were built for securities. Which platform brings which licence to equity trading is set out in our overview of crypto brokers.

The backing and the issuer risk

The decisive point on issuer risk is not the coverage ratio but who holds the backing and under which law. An issuer can have the shares sitting at a regulated custodian without them being separated from its own assets in insolvency. The token holder then queues up among all creditors with an ordinary claim. If the backing is ring-fenced as segregated assets or through a special purpose vehicle, that changes the order.

This detail does not appear in the marketing but in the base prospectus and the product documentation. Investors who cannot find it have not read the most important information about their paper. Three things belong together in the prospectus: the name of the issuer, its registered office together with the supervisory authority, and the section on backing.

No voting rights, no annual general meeting

An equity token securitises economic participation in the price. A voting right at the annual general meeting is practically never included, and a shareholder's information rights do not travel with it either. On dividends it depends on the structure: some products credit the distribution to the token's value, others pay it out, and both are set out in the terms of the respective issuer.

For pure price speculation that mostly makes no difference. For anyone looking to hold a position over years and collect dividends along the way, it is the difference between a security and a bet on one. The question, then, is not whether the token tracks the price well, but what is left of the share besides the price.

Taxation follows investment income, not the crypto holding period

This is where the most expensive misconception sits, and it affects every investor in Germany. With crypto-assets, a gain is tax-free after a holding period of one year, because it counts as a private disposal. For tokenized equities, the prevailing view is that this one-year rule does not apply: the paper is classified as an investment that generates income from capital assets. Flat-rate withholding tax then falls due, plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax, regardless of how long you have held the paper. That is how our October 14, 2026 article puts it, describing this classification expressly as the prevailing view rather than settled law.

Two consequences are regularly overlooked. First, loss offsetting: losses from capital assets can only be set against gains of the same kind, not against gains from crypto sales. Second, tax withholding: whether anything is withheld at all depends on whether the provider acts as a domestic paying agent. At foreign trading venues that is usually not the case, and the income then has to be declared by you. Holding both product types in one portfolio calls for records that keep them apart; the tools for that are in our overview of tax software and portfolio trackers.

One qualification belongs here: the tax treatment of these products is not conclusively settled, and it hangs on the specific structure of the individual token. On a larger position, the question is one for a tax adviser rather than a forum.

63 percent of trading happens outside US market hours

The real appeal of these products sits in a single figure: through August 2026, 63 percent of trading in tokenized equities on Solana took place outside regular US market hours. That is precisely what a traditional securities account cannot deliver. Reacting to news on a Sunday evening is possible with an equity token, where the exchange only offers it on Monday.

The price for that is liquidity. Outside the trading hours of the underlying, the issuer cannot adjust its hedge in the market, and the spread between bid and offer widens. In quiet hours the token price therefore regularly sits away from the last exchange price. That is not a flaw in the product but its construction, and it is the reason a market order at the weekend is a bad idea.

Alpenglow on October 21: the consensus switch reaches the equity tokens too

On October 21, Solana changes its consensus mechanism with Alpenglow, according to developer firm Anza at around 14:50 UTC, at the start of epoch 1064. The official upgrade overview cites a target finality of about 150 milliseconds. During the transition, user transactions will briefly not be included in blocks, and the Firedancer and Frankendancer clients are unsupported in that window; validators need a version based on Agave 4.3.0. The details for stakers are in our article on Alpenglow and epoch 1064.

Two points matter for trading in equity tokens. First, the window itself: an order planned for midday on October 21 should not be placed during the migration. Second, a metric that will cause confusion afterwards. Because validator votes will no longer appear as transactions in blocks, Solana's reported transaction count falls sharply without usage declining. CoinDesk's report on the date describes this as well. Reading that number as a demand signal in the coming weeks means reading it wrong.

What has changed since last week

Compared with our October 14 piece, which focused on the use of tokenized equities as collateral, the market side has turned: Robinhood led weekly volume then, and since October 13 Solana has been back on top. Nothing about the product itself has changed, neither the legal form nor the tax classification. That is the real message of this week. A market share changes within seven days; an issuer's prospectus does not.

Solana's own price plays a secondary role here. SOL was quoted at around $105.82 on Thursday evening, after an intraday low of $100.99 and a high of $106.33, down a good 1.6 percent over seven days (CoinGecko). For trading in tokenized equities the SOL price matters only through transaction fees, since trading is done against stablecoins.

Equity tokens on Solana: the prospectus decides, not the market share

Three steps to place a product like this before you commit money:

1. Identify the issuer and the prospectus. The issuer's name, registered office and supervisory authority, plus the section on backing in the base prospectus. If one of those is missing, the insolvency question is unanswered. The licence your trading venue works under is shown in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Settle the route in. Through an authorised platform with a securities licence, the investor protection of the markets in financial instruments directive applies; through a decentralised exchange it does not. Which provider offers equity trading in Germany is set out in our overview of crypto brokers.
3. Set up the tax separation. Equity tokens and crypto-assets belong in separate records, because the one-year rule applies only to the crypto-assets and losses cannot be offset against each other. The right tools are in our comparison of tax software and portfolio trackers.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)