Why are smart funds all using Gate to trade stock tokens?

At 6 a.m. in the morning, while the New York Stock Exchange is still asleep, an Asian trader has already completed their first Tesla purchase of the day on Gate.

This is not the imagination of traditional finance. It is a real scene that happens every day in Gate’s stock token zone. While traditional securities accounts are still waiting for the market to open, orders in crypto accounts have already been settled, cleared, and assets transferred.

From early 2025 to February 2026, the total trading volume in Gate’s stock token zone exceeded $140 billion. During the same period, over 298,000 on-chain addresses worldwide held stock tokens. This once niche sector is becoming the preferred gateway for crypto traders to allocate global assets.

Why are more and more users choosing to trade stock tokens on Gate? This article will analyze the true logic behind this migration from four dimensions: time freedom, capital efficiency, strategic depth, and platform strength.

Breaking Free from Time: 24/7 Trading Without Closure

The biggest cost of traditional US stock trading isn’t commissions; it’s time.

When major earnings reports are released after hours, or macro data shows anomalies outside trading hours, investors with traditional securities accounts can only wait—wait for the next day’s opening, wait for orders to fill, wait for the T+2 settlement cycle. In the crypto world, time never stops.

Gate’s stock tokens rely on blockchain’s underlying network and professional market maker mechanisms to enable truly 24/7 uninterrupted trading. During US market close hours, the price discovery mechanism still operates: market makers reference prices from trading markets like Frankfurt, follow Nasdaq 100 futures trends, and gauge overall market supply and demand to provide continuous bid and ask quotes for the stock tokens.

This isn’t a simulation; it’s real liquidity.

In January 2026, after Meta’s earnings report was released, its stock token METAX surged to a daily high of 6.43%, with a quote of $717.95. At that moment, it was 4 a.m. Eastern Time and 5 p.m. in Asia. No waiting, no delays—only instant execution.

For traders who see liquidity as their lifeline, 24/7 trading isn’t just convenience; it’s a baseline requirement.

Capital No Longer Fragmented: Buy Apple with USDT, Hedge with BTC Profits

The biggest pain point in cross-market asset allocation isn’t strategy design; it’s capital channels.

Converting crypto assets to fiat, transferring to offshore bank accounts, then to brokerage accounts—this process is time-consuming and involves exchange rate losses and compliance friction. Many native crypto traders aren’t unwilling to allocate to US stocks; they just don’t want to leave their familiar capital system for “allocation.”

Gate’s solution is extremely simple: trade directly with USDT.

Whether it’s Tesla, Apple, or Amazon, all stock tokens are priced in USDT. This means:

• Profits earned in BTC during crypto bull markets can be used to buy US stocks without converting back to fiat;
• When bearish on US stocks, traders can close positions at any time, with funds remaining in stablecoins within their crypto accounts;
• All gains and losses are settled in crypto assets, avoiding the fiat deposit and withdrawal process.

One account, one password, one pool of funds. This isn’t just a product stacking; it’s the greatest respect for cross-market traders—respect for their established trading habits, rather than forcing them to adapt to outdated traditional finance rules.

Elevating Strategy: Spot + Futures + DeFi for Composite Returns

Traditional brokerages offer only one form of stock trading: buy and wait for appreciation. Want to short? You need to borrow shares. Want leverage? You need margin accounts, risk controls, or even phone confirmations.

In Gate’s stock token zone, strategy tools are native and diverse.

Spot trading meets long-term allocation needs. Each token is backed by full physical shares held by a regulated custodian, with a 1:1 peg to the underlying stock. Holders enjoy economic rights—dividends are reinvested, allowing the token’s intrinsic value to grow continuously through compound interest.

Perpetual contracts open up a completely different strategic dimension. The same Tesla stock token can be held long-term in the spot zone or leveraged for long or short positions in the futures zone. Short-term opportunities like pre-earnings volatility, macro data-driven expectations, and market overreactions—difficult to operate with traditional brokerages—are standard tools in Gate’s futures market.

More importantly, DeFi integration capabilities add another layer. Stock tokens aren’t passive static assets; they can be used as collateral for on-chain lending, liquidity mining, and other DeFi protocols, generating additional yield beyond stock price movements. Holding stocks is no longer just waiting for appreciation; it can actively generate income.

While traditional investors are still debating commissions, Gate users are earning from stock price appreciation, shorting gains, and DeFi interest simultaneously with the same assets.

Scale Validation: $14 Billion in Trading Volume and 89% Market Share

Users vote with their feet. The total trading volume in Gate’s stock token zone has surpassed $140 billion. More intuitively, in December 2025, Gate’s monthly trading volume accounted for 89.1% of the global Ondo stock token market.

This isn’t sustained by a single promotional event. 89.1% indicates that when traders worldwide want to allocate to stock tokens, Gate is their default choice.

This market share is supported by Gate’s systematic investment in traditional finance assets. As of February 2026, total trading volume in Gate’s TradFi zone exceeded $33 billion, with a single-day peak of over $6 billion. Asset coverage extends from stocks to gold, silver, forex, indices, and commodities.

This isn’t a side project experiment; it’s a migration of mainstream trading volumes.

Compliance and Security: The Trust of 49 Million Users

For products connecting traditional finance and crypto, compliance isn’t optional; it’s the entry ticket.

Gate’s approach in this area is systematic:

• Licensing: Fully licensed by Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), and holding MiCA licenses from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), among other jurisdictions.
• Asset custody: Stock tokens are held by regulated third-party custodians with actual underlying shares, ensuring asset segregation. The platform maintains a 125% comprehensive reserve ratio, with all major assets held in excess reserves.
• Technology: Gate is the first major exchange to implement zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology to verify asset reserves, and commits to 100% reserves.

As of February 2026, Gate has served over 4.9 million registered users. In the crypto industry, this platform’s cautious and non-radical on-chain asset strategy is itself the most direct commitment to user asset security.

Summary

The essence of stock tokens isn’t just bringing stocks onto the blockchain. It’s a tailored global asset pricing participation tool for crypto capital.

It doesn’t aim to replace traditional brokerages or persuade value investors to change their habits. It solves only one problem: when your main funds are in crypto, and your trading habits are shaped by the crypto market, how can you participate in the growth of top global companies efficiently, cheaply, and frictionlessly?

With $14 billion in trading volume, 89% market share in this niche, and 24/7 liquidity, these numbers point to a clear conclusion:

Gate’s stock token zone has already become the default gateway for crypto funds to allocate global assets.

As Nasdaq submits proposals for stock tokenization trading to the SEC, and T+0 atomic settlement moves from vision to proposal, Gate users are enjoying the present of this future financial infrastructure.

Trading never sleeps. Capital never lies.