Coinbase Tokenized Stocks Draw About $20 Million Weekly, Executive Says

Coinbase reports early demand

Coinbase’s tokenized stock business is drawing roughly $20 million a week, according to John D’Agostino, head of strategy at Coinbase Institutional. The figure signals early uptake, but it’s hard to assess what that activity represents: D’Agostino didn’t say whether it refers to trading, token issuance or deposits, or identify the weeks covered. Those distinctions matter because each describes a different kind of demand, and none alone tells you how much activity is recurring.

Speaking on Bits + Bips in an episode recorded Monday, Oct. 19, D’Agostino said the weekly amount had been growing since the product launched “a few weeks ago.” He pointed to demand for tokenized U.S. equities among people unable to open brokerage accounts, and said Coinbase was seeing “good pickup” in the UAE. That suggests the product may appeal to customers who face practical limits on access to conventional brokerage services, though it doesn’t establish how many users are buying or holding the tokens.

Here’s the thing: a weekly dollar figure can sound concrete while leaving the underlying business difficult to compare. Trading volume can count the same assets repeatedly as they change hands; issuance or deposits would tell a different story about new capital entering the product. Until Coinbase clarifies the measure and its time frame, the $20 million figure is a useful sign of activity, but a thin basis for judging scale.

Base activity and product reach

Coinbase launched its tokenized stocks on Base, its Ethereum layer 2 network, on Aug. 24. The tokens are issued through Abu Dhabi Global Market, where Coinbase received a license in August. The product isn’t available to U.S. persons, a constraint that shapes who can use it and makes D’Agostino’s reference to demand from people without brokerage access particularly relevant. The product’s reach depends not only on interest in tokenized equities, but also on where eligible customers can access them.

Launch-day trading on Base topped $12 million, with nearly all of it attributed to Coinbase’s program, according to Blockworks Data. Base creator Jesse Pollak later said tokenized stocks on the network were trading about $70 million to $100 million daily. He also said 50 stocks were listed by early October, with 250 expected by month’s end. Those figures describe activity across Base and a growing set of available stocks; they don’t, by themselves, establish how much of that daily trading belongs to Coinbase’s program or how broadly the tokens are held.

The distinction is easy to miss. A network total can show that a category is gaining attention, while a company specific figure is needed to judge one issuer’s share. And the number of listed stocks speaks to product breadth, not necessarily to customer demand for each one.

Binance sets a larger benchmark

D’Agostino said Binance had a “bigger headstart” and was doing “multiples” of Coinbase’s figure, but didn’t specify which metric he was comparing. Binance’s bStocks product launched June 11. On Oct. 15, the company said it had passed $1 billion in assets under management and recorded more than $40 billion in cumulative trading volume, citing Dune data. Those are different measures: assets under management indicate the value held in the product, while cumulative volume tallies transactions over time.

Binance also reported average daily trading above $300 million since launch. At an early-August peak, bStocks accounted for more than 90% of weekly on-chain tokenized stock transfers, according to the company’s announcement. Unchained reported that rwa.xyz data ranked bStocks first among tokenized stock platforms. Together, the claims point to a product with substantial reported activity, though comparisons still depend on definitions, reporting periods and data sources. A platform’s own announcement can establish what it says; it doesn’t make every metric directly comparable with a rival’s.

What the figures can and can’t show

The gap between Coinbase’s weekly figure and the larger activity reported by Binance is striking, though the metrics aren’t directly comparable. Binance has also had more time in market, which gives its product a longer period to accumulate trading and assets. Coinbase’s $20 million weekly figure may indicate a promising start, but it can’t yet show whether users are returning, whether the activity is concentrated in a few transactions, or how the product compares on a like-for-like basis.

This is more significant than it looks: tokenized stocks are being presented as a way to extend access to familiar financial assets through crypto infrastructure. Yet access and activity are only part of the picture. For readers assessing the products, the unanswered questions are practical ones: what exactly is being counted, which customers can participate, and whether reported volume reflects sustained use. If you’re working in this space, those definitions matter as much as a headline figure.

The numbers here are underwhelming as a direct comparison, because Coinbase hasn’t defined its measure and Binance’s reported figures cover several distinct metrics. Still, early traction can matter before a product reaches the scale of an established rival. (And this is the part most people overlook: a growing transaction total can coexist with uncertainty about who is using a product and how often.) A useful next signal would be clearer reporting from Coinbase that separates trading, issuance and assets held.

For now, Coinbase says its offering is gaining traction, while Binance’s longer-running product has established a much larger reported scale. The evidence supports that broad reading; it doesn’t yet support a precise comparison of weekly activity. More clarity would make the $20 million figure easier to interpret—and the competitive picture harder to mistake.

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