Circle built its business on putting dollars onto blockchains. Now its own stock is getting the same treatment, and it didn’t have to lift a finger.
Tokenized versions of Circle Internet Group’s shares (NYSE: CRCL) remain the largest tokenized stock on the market, with a combined market capitalization of $385.7 million. Token Terminal data released on October 25, 2026 puts the year-over-year growth at 2,961%.
The details: who’s minting CRCL on-chain
Tokenized stocks work a bit like a coat check ticket. Someone hands a real share to a custodian, and a token representing that share gets issued on a blockchain. The token can then be traded, lent, or plugged into DeFi apps.
In this case, the tokens are designed to be backed 1:1 by underlying NYSE shares held with regulated custodians. Each token is meant to correspond to one real share sitting in a vault somewhere.
Estimates of the total tokenized CRCL market cap ranged from about $373 million to $393 million through mid-to-late October 2026. The $385.7 million figure sits comfortably inside that band.
Three issuers dominate the supply. Binance’s bStocks platform (CRCLb), xStocks (CRCLx), and Ondo (CRCLon) together account for roughly 94% of the total.
bStocks leads the pack. Its CRCLb token on BNB Chain represents about $149 million to $155 million in tokenized equity, making it the single largest wrapper for Circle shares on any chain.
That concentration shows up at the network level too. BNB Chain held about 62% of all tokenized CRCL value as of late October, with Solana serving as the other primary home for these tokens.
Some of these tokens aren’t just sitting in wallets. As of October 20, 2026, $7.7 million worth of CRCLx was deployed in DeFi protocols, where tokenized shares can be used for things like liquidity provision and lending.
Background: an unsponsored stock with a crypto passport
Circle did not ask for any of this. The company does not issue, sponsor, or actively participate in these tokenized products.
Instead, independent platforms started wrapping CRCL shares after Circle’s 2025 IPO. The setup resembles unsponsored American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), a long-standing structure where a third party packages a foreign company’s shares for investors in another market without the company’s direct involvement.
The audience is also similar. These tokens are largely aimed at investors outside the US who want exposure to American equities but may face hurdles accessing them through traditional brokerages.
The broader tokenized equity market has grown alongside CRCL. It went from under $20 million in late 2024 to billion-dollar valuations by 2026, and CRCL has consistently sat at or near the top of that market.
For context, the tokenized slice is still small relative to the real thing. Tokenized CRCL equals about 1.7% of Circle’s traditional equity market cap, which was valued at roughly $20 billion to $22 billion after the 2025 IPO.
What this means
The most obvious question is why Circle, of all companies, leads the tokenized stock rankings. A reasonable read is audience fit: crypto-native traders already know Circle as the company behind USDC, so holding its equity on the same rails they already use requires little explanation.
The issuer concentration is worth watching. With bStocks, xStocks, and Ondo controlling roughly 94% of supply, and BNB Chain hosting about 62% of value, the market leans heavily on a handful of platforms and one network.
That matters because tokenized stocks are only as reliable as the custody arrangements behind them. The 1:1 backing promise depends on regulated custodians actually holding the underlying shares, and on issuers maintaining that link through redemptions, corporate actions, and market stress.
There’s also the unsponsored angle. Because Circle isn’t involved, token holders are relying on third-party issuers rather than the company for how the product is structured and maintained.
The DeFi usage adds another dimension. The $7.7 million of CRCLx in DeFi protocols is modest next to the total market cap, but it shows tokenized equities starting to function as financial building blocks, not just mirrored price tickers.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.