Launching two major US stock products in a month, what strategy is Bitget US Stocks 2.0 playing?

Author: Martin Talk

In June, discussions about "U.S. stocks" in the cryptocurrency market have once again intensified. Following the recent adjustments or launches of U.S. stock-related products by leading platforms like Binance and Coinbase, Bitget has also made consecutive moves this month: first launching the U.S. stock token (rToken) issued by Reality at the beginning of June, and then introducing the Bitget U.S. stock direct connection service this week.

The launch of two completely different U.S. stock solutions within just one month has drawn industry attention to Bitget's "dual-track" layout. Is this merely a stopgap measure in response to regulatory pressure, or a deep exploration of the integration path between traditional finance and the crypto world?

U.S. Stock Direct Connection: Finding Balance Between Traditional and Crypto

The Bitget U.S. stock direct connection service launched this week—Bitget U.S. stocks—focuses on a "broker-like" experience. By collaborating with U.S. licensed brokers such as RQD Clearing and Atomic Vaults Securities (AVS), the platform offers trading access to over 10,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs, supporting fractional trading starting from 0.0001 shares. Notably, this service allows for free asset transfers from traditional brokers like Futu, Tiger, and ChangQiao, and provides a trading period of 5×24 hours.

In cryptocurrency exchanges, "direct connection" is no longer a novel concept, as various platforms claim to directly connect to the two most active capital markets in the world, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. The problems that "direct connection" can solve include liquidity, asset authenticity, and synchronization of corporate actions such as dividends and stock splits. If platforms like Binance, Bitget, and Gate all achieve U.S. stock direct connection, it will no longer be a differentiated advantage.

Compared to Binance's previously launched U.S. stock solution, Bitget's direct connection service retains traditional trading habits completely: users enjoy real shareholding, dividend rights, and voting rights, support asset transfers from other brokers, and the interface interaction, real-time market data, and market information are closer to traditional broker standards. However, this model also faces challenges similar to those of traditional brokers, such as being constrained by the strictness of KYC reviews and the risks of centralized asset custody. For users accustomed to licensed traditional brokers, whether the experience of buying stocks on a cryptocurrency exchange is attractive enough remains to be validated by the market.

U.S. Stock Tokens: Boundary Experiment of RWA Solutions

In contrast to the "conservative" direct connection service, Bitget's Reality U.S. stock token (rToken) launched at the beginning of June has a more crypto-native character. As a member of the RWA (Real World Asset) track, rToken attempts to achieve a blockchain mapping of U.S. stock assets, promising to restore the liquidity of U.S. stock tokens through cooperation with the U.S. broker Alpaca. Some users have even tested that when placing an order for rToken on Bitget, that order also appears in the order books of brokers like Robinhood, demonstrating that the liquidity issues that once troubled RWA issuers like Ondo and xStocks have been effectively resolved through mapping and linking.

As a former leader in the U.S. stock token market, Ondo and xStocks' U.S. stock tokens were criticized for insufficiently clear dividends and slow responses to actions like stock splits, leading to significant long-term price deviations from real stocks for some assets, further intensifying users' concerns about decoupling. However, Reality's U.S. stock token maintains a 1:1 synchronization with underlying assets regarding dividends, stock splits, and other rights.

If we say that in terms of liquidity and dividend schemes, "U.S. stock tokens" can at best only tie with "U.S. stock direct connection," the true core advantage of rToken, backed by the mainstream exchange Bitget, lies in its deep integration with the exchange ecosystem, such as being directly usable as contract collateral, thereby enhancing capital utilization. Additionally, rToken will gradually support richer functions like lending, dollar-cost averaging, and copy trading. Compared to early RWA projects like Ondo and xStocks, Reality indeed attempts to address the pain point of liquidity fragmentation. However, it is undeniable that the RWA track still faces multiple challenges, including regulatory uncertainty, oracle dependency, and cross-chain security. Currently, rToken is deeply bound to Bitget, and whether it can independently expand more off-chain and on-chain scenarios without the exchange's endorsement will be key to testing its long-term value.

Dual-Track Parallel: A Pragmatic Choice for Transition

Why did Bitget choose to advance two routes simultaneously with the intensive launch of two U.S. stock products within a month? Bitget CEO Gracy Chen provided an intuitive explanation in a recent tweet: there are significant behavioral differences between traditional investors and crypto users, and forcing a unification often leads to a compromised experience for both sides.

From an objective perspective, Bitget's "dual-track" reflects the current market's divided understanding of U.S. stock tokenization. On one hand, traditional investors still have doubts about private key management and smart contract risks, preferring regulated centralized custody; on the other hand, crypto users pursue 24/7 trading, high capital efficiency, and the spirit of decentralization. In this transitional period where the two have not fully integrated, a single product is unlikely to meet the demands of both ends.

Bitget's strategy appears to be a compromise, but in reality, it is a pragmatic market positioning. By attracting traditional funds through direct connection services and exploring Web3 native scenarios through rToken, Bitget attempts to find the greatest common divisor between compliance and innovation. However, this model also places higher demands on the platform's operational capabilities: how to ensure the compliance independence of the two systems? How to avoid internal resource squeezing?

In the long run, U.S. stock tokenization may be an inevitable trend, but the speed of this process's evolution may be slower than expected. Bitget's "dual-track" attempt may provide the industry with a sample to observe how traditional finance and the crypto world coexist. However, until regulatory clarity is achieved, this experiment of bringing U.S. stocks on-chain will continue to advance amid controversy and exploration.