Securitize chief warns unauthorised tokenised stocks risk a 300% pricing gap
Carlos Domingo says most tokenised equities lack issuer backing, raising insider-trading and price-integrity concerns for regulators.
The chief executive of one of the largest regulated tokenisation platforms has warned that the bulk of tokenised stocks now circulating on crypto exchanges are unauthorised synthetic products, with pricing that can diverge from the underlying shares by as much as 300 per cent. The intervention, made by Securitize’s Carlos Domingo, lands as regulators on both sides of the Atlantic weigh how to bring digital representations of listed equities within existing securities law.
Domingo aired the criticism in a Wall Street Journal piece published on 15 July, describing the current market for unauthorised tokenised equities as a “can of worms” that will eventually “explode”. His argument centres on a structural gap: most tokens marketed as tracking shares in companies such as Apple or Amazon carry no sign-off from the issuer, no verified custody arrangement for underlying assets, and no mechanism to enforce insider-trading rules.
A widening gap between two prices
Because these tokens trade on platforms that often sit outside US jurisdiction, the same underlying stock can effectively carry two prices at once: the regulated quote on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, and a separate, unregulated price on an offshore crypto venue. Domingo pointed to instances where such tokens have deviated from the real share price by up to 300 per cent, a gap that reflects the absence of reliable price feeds or arbitrage mechanisms tying the token back to the listed security.
The insider-trading implications follow directly from that disconnect. Where a company has no involvement in a token’s creation, there is no compliance function monitoring trades, no audit trail, and no SEC filing obligation attached to the wrapper. Domingo’s warning implies that a trader with material non-public information about a listed company could, in principle, express that knowledge through an unauthorised token on an offshore exchange with far less scrutiny than would apply to the underlying shares themselves.
Securitize’s regulated counter-model
Domingo’s comments carry added weight given his own firm’s position in the market. Securitize completed a SPAC merger on 2 July, becoming the first pure-play tokenisation company to list on the NYSE, trading under the ticker SECZ, and has tokenised its own shares in the process. The firm manages between $4bn and $4.5bn in tokenised assets as of July 2026, built around what it calls “native, issuer-sponsored tokenisation” — an approach in which the company whose equity is being represented is directly party to the process, rather than a third party creating a synthetic wrapper without consent.
Domingo has pressed this argument before regulators previously, having testified to Congress in 2024 in favour of bringing tokenised securities under existing legal frameworks rather than leaving them in a jurisdictional grey zone. His latest remarks suggest that pressure for clearer rules is building, with the SEC able to pursue domestic actors but facing a far harder task chasing token issuers based in offshore jurisdictions with limited cooperation.
Why it matters for European investors
For UK and European investors weighing exposure to tokenised equities, Domingo’s warning reframes the relevant question away from whether a token nominally tracking a given stock exists, towards whether the issuer of that stock has actually authorised and participated in its creation. Without that authorisation, holders are effectively exposed to a derivative product with uncertain legal standing, no guaranteed link to the real share price, and little recourse if the arrangement collapses.
The debate arrives as trading volumes tied to tokenised assets on decentralised platforms continue to climb, intensifying calls from regulators for a clearer distinction between issuer-backed digital securities and unauthorised synthetic copies. Securitize’s NYSE listing and multibillion-dollar asset base position it to benefit structurally should regulators move to tighten the rules around who may legitimately tokenise a listed company’s shares.
Read more: Decentralised exchanges’ record 24% trading share sharpens scrutiny of tokenised stocks
