Industry Debate Over Tokenized Stock Models Intensifies After AMC Dispute

AMC Entertainment’s conflict with Robinhood over tokenized AMC shares has escalated into a wider industry debate. Three distinct tokenized‑stock models are competing for roughly $2.9 billion of assets, and regulators have already placed each model into a separate legal category.

Three Competing Designs

Issuer‑sponsored tokens – Companies such as Securitize and Superstate place their own registered shares on‑chain, with the issuer or its transfer agent maintaining the master shareholder record.

Third‑party custodial tokens – Providers like Dinari hold the underlying shares through regulated intermediaries and pass the economic exposure to token holders. Dinari is the only one of the three that sells to U.S. investors.

Linked securities (synthetic tokens) – Robinhood’s stock tokens and Ondo’s tokens are issued by offshore entities, represent debt securities, and confer no direct claim on the referenced company.

Market Share and Activity

• Total tokenized‑stock assets: $2.91 billion (up 14.4 % in 30 days).
• Largest platform: Ondo with $869.6 million, followed by bStocks, xStocks, Securitize, Bitget, Robinhood, Figure, Superstate, and Dinari.
• Robinhood Chain recorded $1.56 billion of DEX volume in a 24‑hour period, more than double the volume a week earlier.

Key Voices in the Debate

Gabriel Otte, co‑founder of Dinari, criticized synthetic token models as “indisputably worse for the end investor” and advocated for the custodial approach. Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, countered that tokenized stocks meet demand for programmability, 24/7 trading, and DeFi integration, likening them to early stablecoins.

Securitize’s CEO Carlos Domingo emphasized the importance of native, fully compliant tokenization to avoid offshore derivatives. Brian Huang, co‑founder of Glider, argued that execution quality depends more on the trading venue than on the token wrapper, and predicted convergence toward Ondo’s request‑for‑quote design.

Regulatory Perspective

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance has defined each model’s legal status, affecting which securities laws apply and what rights holders possess in bankruptcy. The agency also highlighted counterparty risk for synthetic tokens, noting that holders may face exposure to the third‑party issuer’s insolvency.

Industry Calls for Clarity

Transfer agents such as Continental Stock Transfer & Trust and Computershare have urged the SEC to delineate rules for third‑party tokens, warning of investor confusion and governance risks. Legal commentator Ariel Givner described synthetic tokens as “derivatives, not tokenization.”

Current Prices

Ondo’s token traded at $0.3689, up 5.1 % over 24 hours and 5.2 % over seven days (data as of September 5).