Crypto exchange Bitget announced Tuesday, March 3, 2026, that it intends to capture 40% of global tokenized stock trading volume by 2030, alongside the release of a redesigned mobile app that consolidates crypto and traditional finance products on a single screen. The company, which claims 125 million users across more than 150 regions, is positioning itself as a key gateway for retail investors in markets where access to global equities has long been restricted by regulatory, currency, and infrastructure barriers.

The Numbers Behind the Claim

Bitget's 40% target is based on projections that annual tokenized stock trading will reach between $15 trillion and $30 trillion by 2030, up from a nascent base today. At the midpoint, the exchange's stated target would represent roughly $9 trillion in annual volume by this calculation. For context, overall global stock trading currently runs between $100 trillion and $130 trillion per year, and analysts project that figure will rise to $160 to $200 trillion by 2030 as markets expand.

The exchange already holds a significant position in the tokenized stock niche. According to data reported by Cryptopolitan and CoinGape, Bitget currently controls 89.1% of global trading volume for Ondo Finance's tokenized stock tokens. Bitget recorded $6 billion in daily trading volume in January 2026 across all products on its platform. Ondo Finance is the leading platform for on-chain equities, with more than $2.5 billion in total value locked as of January 2026 and over $7 billion in cumulative trading volume since launching its Ondo Global Markets product in September 2025. Ondo's tokenized equities, which include products tracking assets like the S&P 500 ETF (SPYon), the Nasdaq-100 (QQQon), and Tesla (TSLAon), are currently available on both Ethereum and Solana, with Chainlink Data Feeds providing real-time pricing.

The broader real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector, which refers to blockchain-based representations of physical or financial assets like stocks, bonds, and real estate, has grown nearly fivefold in three years. On-chain tokenized RWAs reached approximately $29 billion in total value locked as of September 2025. McKinsey projects the overall market could reach $2 trillion by 2030, while estimates from Ripple and Boston Consulting Group place the ceiling as high as $18.9 trillion by 2033. The gap between those figures reflects meaningful differences in methodology and timeline. The Ripple and BCG projection assumes a compound annual growth rate of approximately 53% through 2033, a considerably more aggressive assumption than the McKinsey model and one that extends three years further into the future.

What the App Update Actually Does

Bitget's redesigned mobile app reorganizes its trading interface around two primary tabs. The first, labeled "Trade," consolidates its existing crypto products including spot trading, futures, margin, on-chain transactions, and earn products. The second, a new "TradFi" tab, groups access to gold, foreign exchange, equity indices, stock perpetuals (derivatives that track stock prices), and RWA tokens. Bitget claims the redesign cuts the number of steps required to execute a trade by roughly 30% compared to industry norms, according to the company's own testing. More than 80,000 users joined a waitlist before the app launched publicly.

The redesign is tied to Bitget's broader positioning as a "Universal Exchange" (UEX), a self-described category the company uses to explain its strategy of combining crypto and traditional finance products under a single interface. The UEX framing helps clarify why the app treats tokenized equities and crypto derivatives as equally native products rather than treating one as an add-on to the other.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen framed the product direction in broader terms. "Crypto is turning into the settlement layer for everyday finance," she said in a statement. "Sooner than most people think, stablecoins and native assets won't feel crypto at all."

Why This Matters Outside the United States

The practical significance of tokenized equities is sharpest in markets where retail stock market participation is low. A February 2026 report from Cornell University's SC Johnson College of Business estimated that between 55% and 62% of U.S. adults hold equity investments, compared to just 5% to 15% in typical emerging markets. The report attributed the gap to structural barriers rather than investor disinterest, pointing to high minimum investment thresholds, complex cross-border identity verification requirements, illiquid local exchanges, and currency instability.

Nigeria illustrates both the opportunity and the complications. The country processes more than $90 billion in annual crypto transactions and has a 35% crypto adoption rate, the highest in Africa, according to Chainalysis data. Bitget Wallet recently launched a bank transfer feature in Nigeria that lets users convert USDT or USDC directly to naira and send funds to more than 45 local bank accounts in minutes, extending the exchange's local infrastructure. For a Nigerian retail investor, a tokenized S&P 500 product settles the core problem: exposure to dollar-denominated global equities without needing a foreign brokerage account or navigating foreign exchange restrictions.

The regulatory picture, however, remains incomplete. Nigeria's Investment and Securities Act of 2025, signed by President Tinubu in April 2025, formally classifies virtual assets as securities and requires crypto operators to obtain SEC licenses. The regulator is still developing a specific framework for tokenized securities, and capital gains on crypto trading will be taxed at up to 25% from 2026 onward. How that tax applies to USDT-settled equity gains is not yet resolved.

In India, Chainalysis ranks the country first globally for grassroots crypto adoption. Bitget has said it expects to finalize its license application with India's Financial Intelligence Unit in 2026. The exchange already offers rupee-to-stablecoin conversion through its wallet product. India's Liberalized Remittance Scheme caps international investment at $250,000 per year, but the more practical barriers for most retail investors are the cost and complexity of setting up foreign brokerage accounts. Tokenized equities on a stablecoin-settled mobile platform remove those steps. Whether India's securities regulator SEBI would view such products as circumventing its securities licensing regime is an open question that will likely come to a head as the market matures, and it represents a material regulatory risk for Indian retail investors considering these products.

The macro significance extends beyond individual investors. The Brookings Institution has noted that tokenization could accelerate small and medium enterprise financing across Africa by lowering the cost of capital formation, a dynamic that amplifies the potential impact of this emerging asset class well beyond personal investment accounts.

Risks Worth Watching

Bitget's market share concentration creates a single point of exposure for the tokenized stock sector. With the exchange controlling nearly 90% of Ondo-linked token trading, any platform outage or security event would effectively freeze the most liquid segment of the tokenized equity market. The 40% market share target by 2030 also depends on regulatory clearances across multiple jurisdictions, sustained institutional adoption, and macro conditions that are not guaranteed. Competitors including Robinhood, which launched tokenized U.S. stocks on Arbitrum for European users in 2025, and Coinbase, which added tokenized stocks for U.S. investors late last year, are moving on the same opportunity. The Depository Trust Company, the central clearinghouse for U.S. securities, was also authorized in 2026 to create blockchain-based digital representations of the assets it holds, embedding institutional tokenization directly into core U.S. capital markets infrastructure.

For investors in Nigeria, India, and other emerging markets, the next 12 to 18 months will likely determine whether tokenized equities become a viable wealth-building tool or remain in a regulatory gray zone. Bitget's timeline to 2030 is ambitious. The infrastructure is being built now.