Crypto.com Launches Tokenized US Equities and ETFs in Europe

Crypto.com now enables eligible users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and other approved jurisdictions to gain exposure to U.S. equities and exchange-traded funds through the Crypto.com App, the company said in a Wednesday (Aug. 12) press release.

The company’s new Tokenized Stocks offer exposure to 1,500 underlying stocks and funds. Tokenized Stocks are derivative financial instruments designed to track the price performance of the underlying assets; they do not confer legal or beneficial ownership of the assets or any associated shareholder rights, according to the release.

In the EEA, Tokenized Stocks are issued by Foris Capital CY Limited, which is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, while the underlying assets are held in custody with Alpaca, a U.S. regulated self-clearing broker-dealer, per the release.

Tokenized Stocks offers round-the-clock trading, fractional investing and fast settlement, the release said.

“We’re advancing our multi-asset ecosystem by giving our users a flexible way to invest with instant access to U.S. equity and ETF exposure,” Crypto.com Co-Founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said in the release. “Money never sleeps. Market access shouldn’t either. By modernizing one of the world’s oldest asset classes with the speed of blockchain, Tokenized Stocks offers a simple, 24/7 solution to a historically complex trading experience.”

Crypto.com announced in July that it secured a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities to accelerate its expansion into new asset classes. The company said the primary objective is to bridge the divide between digital assets and traditional financial markets, creating a round-the-clock financial ecosystem designed for greater market efficiency.

The investment marked the first institutional funding round in Crypto.com’s 10-year history and valued the company at $20 billion.

“Having built the right regulatory and tech infrastructure over the last decade, Crypto.com is now perfectly positioned to capture this new wave of growth across all asset classes,” Marszalek said in a July 16 press release.

In other moves earlier this year, Crypto.com secured a stored value facilities (SVF) license in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), launched an in-app booking service in partnership with travel infrastructure provider Bookitand gained conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to charter Foris Dax National Trust Bank.