IMF Reports More Than Half of Tokenized Stock Trading Occurs Outside Regular Market Hours
IMF finds over half of tokenized equity trading happens after hours
The International Monetary Fund reported on October 8 that more than half of all trading in tokenized equities takes place outside of regular stock market hours. Tokenized equities are digital representations of real-world stocks that exist on a blockchain (a shared digital ledger) rather than on a traditional exchange.
The finding comes from the IMF's Global Financial Stability Report, which examined how tokenization is changing equity markets. The fund acknowledged that demand for continuous access is genuine, but it also flagged that simply enabling 24/7 trading does not automatically solve the deeper problems of market depth, liquidity, and resilience.
What the IMF's statement says
- The IMF confirmed that over 50% of tokenized equity trading occurs outside regular market hours.
- The fund stated that the demand for round-the-clock access is real.
- The IMF emphasized that building markets which are deep, liquid, and resilient remains the central challenge.
- Market depth — the ability of buyers and sellers to trade sizable positions without large price swings — is cited as a separate issue from trading hours.
Efforts to build the liquidity infrastructure
Ondo, a company working on tokenized assets, has opened a new route that lets approved institutions swap existing U.S. stocks and ETFs (exchange-traded funds, which are funds that track a basket of assets) held at Alpaca for corresponding tokens. Rather than providing separate cash to buy the underlying shares, institutions can exchange holdings directly.
Ondo said the change was designed to lower financing costs and reduce timing mismatches for market makers who need to replenish onchain token inventory. Market makers are firms that continuously post buy and sell prices to keep a market functioning smoothly.
The route is limited to approved institutions that have active accounts with both Alpaca and Ondo. It does not give every tokenholder the general right to claim the underlying shares.
What this means in practice
The IMF's finding highlights a gap between what investors want — the ability to trade at any time — and what the current infrastructure can support reliably. Being able to place a trade and having enough buyers or sellers available at that moment are two different things. The source material does not provide data on how large the after-hours trading volumes are in dollar terms, nor does it offer a timeline for when markets will meet the IMF's standard for depth and resilience.
Sources
Newisty Editorial Team covers technology, cryptocurrency, digital products, online platforms, developer tools and the wider digital economy. Our content is researched from official sources, company announcements, public documentation, market data and other primary or reputable sources. Articles are reviewed and edited before publication for clarity, accuracy and useful context.