When the New York Stock Exchange opens for the day, it is already late evening in Phnom Penh. For investors across Asia, the hours during which shares in the world’s largest companies can be bought and sold have never been convenient. It is one of several practical problems that a fast-growing corner of global finance is now trying to solve.

The method is called tokenisation. Instead of buying a company share through a bank or a stockbroker, an investor buys a digital token that represents that share. The token is recorded on a blockchain — a shared digital record kept across many computers.

Supporters point to three practical advantages. These tokens can be traded at any hour, not only when stock exchanges are open. They can be bought by people in countries where ordinary stockbrokers do not operate. And because a token can be divided into very small pieces, an investor need not buy a whole share. A single share in a company such as Nvidia or Tesla costs far more than many people would want to put into one investment; a fraction of one is a different proposition entirely.

The market has grown sharply this year. DeFiLlama, an independent research firm that studies blockchain markets, published a report in August 2026 measuring the growth. It found the value of this market rose by more than 140 percent during 2026 — from $814 million at the start of the year to almost $2 billion.¹

Trading activity has grown even faster. Separate figures from the research platform RWA.xyz, reported in July, showed roughly $8.79 billion worth of these tokens changing hands in a single month. That was about 88 percent more than a year earlier. The number of people holding them reached around 414,000.² But the same figures carried a more mixed signal. The number of accounts holding these tokens rose by around 16 percent. Yet the number of accounts actually trading in a given month fell sharply. Month-to-month swings in figures of this kind can be very large, so it is too early to say whether this marks a lasting pattern. What it does suggest is that the rising value being traded is coming from a relatively small group of active traders, rather than from a broad base of participants.²

As the market matures, the question analysts are asking is changing. It is no longer only about how fast the market is growing. It is about something more practical: on which platforms can these tokens actually be bought and sold easily, and at a fair price?

Two things decide this. The first is the cost of trading — the gap between the price a buyer must pay and the price a seller receives. A smaller gap means a cheaper trade. The second is how many buyers and sellers are ready at any moment. When there are many, a large order can be completed without pushing the price up or down.

The DeFiLlama report measured both across five tokenised share markets. It found that Bitget, one of the world’s largest multi-asset trading platforms, had the smallest gap between buying and selling prices of any platform tested — less than one hundredth of one percent. It also found Bitget had the most buyers and sellers ready at the best available price.¹ In a wider test covering share and commodity products, the platform led on most measures.¹

“A tokenized stock is only as good as the market behind it,” said Gracy Chen, Chief Executive of Bitget, responding to the findings. “Investors don’t care how the asset is packaged if they can’t trade it efficiently. That’s why liquidity and execution matter… As this market grows, those are the things investors will increasingly expect.”¹

Bitget’s own research team has looked at how customers are using these tokens. Writing in July 2026, Ryan Lee, Chief Analyst at Bitget Research, reported that the platform’s tokenised share products passed $100 million in customer money held within five weeks of launch.³ He also found that customers traded these tokens far more often than they held them — the total value traded was about six times the value being held at any one time. In his reading, people are using them as short-term trading tools rather than as long-term investments. Demand has been strongest for shares in technology and computer-chip companies — names such as Nvidia, Cisco and Tesla — reflecting wider investor interest in the businesses supplying the hardware behind artificial intelligence.³

Other outside research points the same way on trading conditions. CoinGlass, a market data firm, ranked Bitget second among the platforms it tracked for how easily one major digital asset could be traded in large amounts during the first half of 2026.⁴

Regulators are paying attention to this market, and are making careful distinctions within it. In Cambodia, the National Bank’s rules on digital assets, issued in December 2024, divide these assets into two groups. Digital tokens that represent real, traditional assets — such as company shares, bonds or commodities — are placed in one group, with detailed conditions each must meet. Digital assets that are not backed by anything are placed in a separate group and treated more strictly.⁵

This market is still young. It has not yet been tested through a full cycle of rising and falling prices. The technology is still changing, and rules for it are still being written in many countries. What the latest research suggests is that the market is entering a more demanding stage — one where the quality of the trading behind a token matters more than the novelty of the idea.

Key Terms
Tokenisation	Turning ownership of a real asset — such as a company share — into a digital token recorded on a blockchain. The token is meant to follow the value of the real asset.
Blockchain	A shared digital record, kept across many computers at once, designed so that entries are transparent and hard to change.
Trading gap (spread)	The difference between what a buyer pays and what a seller receives for the same asset. A smaller gap means it costs less to trade.
Ready buyers and sellers (liquidity)	How many people are waiting to buy or sell at prices close to the current one. More of them means large orders can be filled without moving the price.

Note: Digital asset trading is subject to regulation in Cambodia under directives issued by the National Bank of Cambodia. Readers are advised to consult applicable local regulations and seek independent financial advice before engaging with any digital asset platform.