What are tokenised stocks, and how do they work?

A tokenised stock is a token that tracks the price of one real company share, matched one-for-one by a share an issuer holds in custody. You get the price movement and the dividends. You don't get the vote, and you usually can't move the token to a broker. Bamboo and Trove sell the real share. Daya Stocks sells the token.

Three different things get called a tokenised stock, and the difference decides what you own. One is a token with a real share behind it. One is issued by the company itself and recorded in its own share register. One has no share behind it at all. How to invest in US stocks from Nigeria covers the apps and what each of them charges. This page is about the structure underneath them.

What is a tokenised stock?

A tokenised stock is a digital token that represents a company share and trades on a blockchain rather than through a stock exchange. The token's job is to follow the share price. Whether there is a real share behind it depends entirely on who issued it, which is the part most explanations skip.

There are three structures in use, and they aren't variations on one idea. They give you three different things:

1. A one-for-one backed token. An issuer buys the real share, places it with a custodian, and creates a token against it. Backed, Dinari and Ondo all work this way. You hold a claim on the issuer rather than a share registered in your name.
2. A token the company issues itself. The share is recorded in the company's own share register, kept by a transfer agent, which is the firm that maintains the official list of shareholders. Securitize and Figure use this model. A holder here can be the registered owner.
3. A synthetic token. There is no share anywhere. You hold a contract that tracks the price, and your claim is against whoever wrote the contract. The stock tokens Robinhood launched on 30 June 2025 work this way for private companies, tracking performance through structured contracts rather than holding anything.

What it means for you: the word on the app is the same in all three cases. If a platform won't tell you plainly which of the three it is selling, you are being asked to take price exposure without knowing what stands behind it.

How is a tokenised stock created?

A one-for-one backed token is created in four steps. The issuer buys the real share on a normal stock exchange. It places that share with a regulated custodian, which is a firm whose business is holding assets for other people. It creates, or mints, a token against the share. You buy the token. Unwinding it runs the same steps backwards, and the token is destroyed.

The chain matters because each link is somebody you are relying on. Backed, which issues the xStocks range, holds its shares with Clearstream Banking and InCore Bank. Ondo issues through a special purpose vehicle, a company set up to hold one set of assets and nothing else, and uses a custodial broker-dealer. Whether one-for-one backing means anything in practice comes down to how good the custodian is, how often the holdings are audited, and whether client assets are kept separate from the issuer's own.

What do you actually own?

With a backed token you own a claim on the issuer, not the share. The share exists and sits with a custodian, and your right is a contractual one against the company that sold you the token. That is a weaker position than a brokerage account, where the share is held for you and recorded in your name.

Here is what each route gives you. Nothing in this table is a price, because what you own and what it costs are separate questions, and the apps are compared in Bamboo vs Trove vs Risevest vs Hisa.

Do you get dividends on a tokenised stock?

On a backed token, yes, and usually not as cash. The issuer passes the value through by changing the token balance, by adjusting a multiplier attached to the token, or by paying out a stablecoin, and in each case US withholding tax comes off first. A synthetic token normally passes nothing through at all.

Ondo's tokens show how the no-cash version works. They are built as total-return trackers, so a dividend is reinvested into the token's value net of withholding tax instead of being paid out. Over years that means one token can come to represent more than one underlying share. There is no cash landing in an account, which also means there is nothing to reinvest by hand and nothing to spend.

What it means for you: if you were counting on dividend income to live on, a total-return token doesn't give you that. It grows the holding instead.

Do you get voting rights?

On a backed token, no. The custodian holds the share and votes it under its own policy, or abstains. None of the current backed-token programmes hand the vote to the person holding the token, which is the clearest single difference between a token and a share in a brokerage account.

There is one partial exception. Since April 2026 holders of Ondo's tokens have been able to submit voting preferences through Broadridge, the firm that handles shareholder communications for much of the market. Ondo is still the legal owner of the shares and decides how to vote, and it is under no legal obligation to follow what holders asked for. So it is a channel for an opinion rather than a vote.

Where does Daya Stocks fit?

Daya Stocks is the tokenised route, and it is honest about the trade. You hold a token that tracks the share price rather than the certificate itself, there are no voting rights, and positions can't be moved to another broker, so you sell in the app and withdraw naira. Nigerian shares aren't available either, and those need a local broker.

What you get for that. Daya Stocks charges 0.25% a trade and starts from $1, where buying US stocks from Nigeria usually costs 1% to 1.5% a trade, and it carries over 400 assets with no funding or withdrawal fee. Dividends are reinvested automatically into the same position after tax, which is the total-return model described above rather than a cash payment. Trading runs 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, including after the New York close, so a Lagos evening isn't the only window you get.

You invest by dollar amount and the app works out the fraction of a share that buys. Funding is in naira from a Nigerian bank, and a USDC or USDT deposit can top up the dollar balance instead. Opening an account takes a BVN, a valid ID and a selfie. If what you want is a holding you can vote and transfer, a brokerage app suits you better, and the honest version of that choice is in Bamboo vs Trove vs Risevest vs Hisa. If what you want is small amounts and hours that aren't set by New York, this is the structure that gives you those.

What happens in a stock split or a takeover?

In a split, the issuer adjusts the token supply or the multiplier in proportion, so your stake tracks the same share of the company it did before. You don't have to do anything, and you shouldn't see your exposure change. A split is the straightforward case.

A takeover is the case to read the documents for. The issuer's own terms govern what happens, and the usual mechanism is that your tokens are redeemed at the relevant price rather than swapped for whatever the acquiring company issues. With a share in a brokerage account you would normally receive the cash or the new shares the deal pays out. With a token you get the issuer's chosen treatment, so it is worth finding out what that is before a deal is announced rather than after.

Can you trade tokenised stocks at the weekend?

Usually yes, within whatever window the issuer runs, and the catch is that the share itself isn't trading. Ondo's tokens, for example, run from Sunday evening to Friday evening New York time. Daya Stocks runs 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, including after the New York close.

When the underlying market is shut, nobody is setting a share price, so the token price is set by whoever will trade with you. Spreads get wider, there is less depth, and the redemption machinery that normally keeps a token close to its share isn't running. So a token price can drift from the last traded share price, and the gap is widest exactly when the market is closed and news has just landed.

What it means for you: being able to trade at 2am is useful when you can't reach a screen during Nigerian afternoon hours. It isn't useful as a reason to trade at 2am. The price you get at a thin hour is worse than the price you get when New York is open.

Can you turn a tokenised stock back into a real share?

Not directly. You can redeem a backed token with the issuer for cash or a stablecoin, and then use that money to buy the share through a broker. That is an exit followed by a fresh purchase, not a conversion, and it means two sets of costs and a gap where you are out of the market.

Platforms also set their own rules on whether a token can leave at all. Some let you move it to your own wallet and some restrict it to the platform, so this is a question to ask before you fund an account rather than when you want your money.

What should you check before you buy one?

A platform that answers these five plainly on its own pages is telling you something good about itself:

1. Which of the three structures is it? Backed by a real share, issued by the company, or synthetic.
2. Who holds the underlying, and are those assets kept separate from the platform's own money?
3. How do dividends reach you, and is withholding tax taken off before or after?
4. Can the token leave the platform, and if not, how do you get your money out?
5. What are the trading hours, and what happens to the price outside them?

A tokenised stock is a reasonable way to get dollar exposure to companies you otherwise couldn't reach from Nigeria, in amounts that make sense for you. It is a different asset from a share, and the places it differs are dividends, votes, transfers and who is holding the thing when something goes wrong. Check those four and you know what you've bought.