The platform, which currently serves 125 million users across more than 150 countries, is calling the new model a "Universal Exchange" (UEX). The redesigned app brings crypto and conventional financial markets onto a single homepage, with two dedicated sections: a "Trade" tab for digital assets and a "TradFi" tab for traditional assets including stock perpetuals, gold, silver, foreign exchange, and indices. The UEX model is built around four pillars: digital assets, on-chain interoperability, tokenized equities, and AI tools through Bitget's GetAgent assistant, which has attracted more than 500,000 users.

All instruments settle in USDT, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and are accessible without a traditional brokerage account.

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What the Numbers Show

Bitget's push into tokenized equities is backed by measurable momentum, though much of that growth is recent and concentrated. The company said cumulative tokenized stock spot volume crossed $1 billion in early January 2026, with approximately 95% of that total generated in December 2025 alone. In the futures segment, Messari Research data as reported by BitcoinEthereumNews puts cumulative tokenized stock futures volume at roughly $18 billion, with $13.6 billion of that recorded in November 2025.

Institutional participation has shifted sharply. At the start of 2025, institutions accounted for about 39% of spot volume on the platform and just 3% of futures market-making activity. By December 2025, those figures had risen to 82% and 60%, respectively. The platform recorded a single-day trading volume of $6 billion in January 2026.

Bitget also holds an 89.1% share of global trading volume for Ondo Finance's tokenized stock tokens, a figure the company says is corroborated by Messari Research but which originates with Bitget's own reporting.

Ondo Finance is the primary infrastructure provider behind these products. It received regulatory approval from Abu Dhabi Global Market in early 2026 to offer tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, and integrated Chainlink's data feeds as a pricing oracle layer for equities.

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The Access Gap in Emerging Markets

For retail investors in parts of Africa and South Asia, the practical significance of tokenized equities is less about trading innovation and more about access. In markets across sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, buying shares in companies like Apple or Tesla through a conventional brokerage typically involves multi-step identity verification, foreign exchange conversion fees, minimum account balances, and regulatory uncertainty. South Asian markets such as Pakistan face comparable barriers.

A USDT-settled tokenized stock on a crypto exchange bypasses most of that friction.

Jesse Knutson, Head of Operations at Bitfinex, made the case in December 2025 in terms that go to the structural point: "Emerging markets also tend to 'leapfrog' infrastructure that holds back developed markets, adopting digital rails." He added that "tokenization enables fractional ownership of assets, making investments accessible to a broader range of investors."

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen framed the broader shift in similar terms. "What we are seeing is not just demand for equities on-chain, but a broader appetite for assets like gold and commodities to trade with the same speed, transparency, and global reach as crypto," she said in January 2026. In a statement released alongside today's app update, Chen added that "crypto is turning into the settlement layer for everyday finance."

Africa and South Asia are not yet the dominant sources of trading volume on the platform. Messari data shows 39.6% of tokenized stock trading activity originates in East Asia. But the structural case for adoption in lower-access markets is real, and mobile-first internet adoption across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is an increasingly cited driver of financial inclusion, according to reporting from BitcoinKE and regional technology outlets.

Regulatory clarity remains uneven. South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority formally licensed crypto asset service providers in 2024, giving platforms like Bitget a clearer operating environment in that market. South African outlets including the Mail and Guardian have covered Bitget's push into tokenized equities, reflecting active regional media engagement with the story.

In India, investors can technically access foreign equities through the Reserve Bank of India's Liberalised Remittance Scheme, but the process is costly and capped. Whether tokenized equities on offshore crypto platforms fall within or outside that regulatory framework is not yet settled.

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Market Context and Caveats

The tokenized equities market reached an estimated $963 million in total market capitalisation by early 2026, up from roughly $32 million a year earlier, a 2,900% year-on-year increase.

Ondo Finance's Global Markets product alone surpassed $500 million in total value and $7 billion in cumulative trading volume since its September 2025 launch.

Bitget's 40% market share target by 2030 is a company projection, not an independent forecast. The exchange estimates that tokenized stocks could account for $15 to $30 trillion of an annual global stock market that may reach $160 to $200 trillion by that date. Third-party projections for the broader tokenized real-world asset market by 2030 range widely: McKinsey estimates $2 to $4 trillion, while a cluster of institutional forecasters sits in a higher band, with Ark Invest projecting more than $11 trillion and BCG together with ADDX projecting $16 trillion. Security Token Market reaches as high as $30 trillion. The spread reflects how early and uncertain the space remains.

The app's navigation redesign reportedly cuts the number of steps required to reach traditional financial products by about 30% compared to industry benchmarks, a functional improvement that will matter most to the non-crypto users Bitget is trying to bring onto the platform.

For developers and infrastructure builders, Bitget's on-chain bridge product, Bitget Onchain, launched in April 2025 and reached $2.4 billion in cumulative volume by year-end. The maturity of that infrastructure layer is central to the broader story: settlement reliability and price accuracy determine whether institutional and retail users trust tokenized equities as a genuine alternative to conventional brokerages. Ondo's Chainlink integration and its Solana expansion set a pricing oracle standard that competing tokenized equity products will likely need to match as the market structure matures.