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Republic, a New York-based investment startup, is offering users exposure to SpaceX by issuing a “tokenized” representation of its shares.
The company will begin selling the digital tokens this week and eventually plans to expand the offering to other private companies like artificial intelligence darlings OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Stripe, X, Waymo, Epic Games and more. The Wall Street Journal first
Financial institutions are becoming increasingly interested in tokenizing traditional assets because of the often-touted benefits of blockchain technology: lower costs, faster settlement times, greater transparency about ownership and performance and programmable terms, as well as increased accessibility for retail investors and global reach.
The announcement comes about a week after Coinbase said it’s pushing for SEC approval to offer trading of tokenized public stocks, which would give the crypto services provider an additional revenue stream and put it in closer competition with brokerages like Robinhood and eToro.
Competing crypto exchange Kraken recently said it’ll offer tokens of U.S. stocks for 24/7 trading in unspecified markets abroad.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has said he sees the “tokenization of every financial asset” as an important step in “the technological revolution in the financial markets.”
