Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante: Plans to Expand On-chain Stocks to About 10,000
Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante stated that the team plans to expand the current approximately 200 on-chain stocks to about 10,000, aiming to move the entire stock market to Solana.
He proposed a single interface to allow real stocks to flow bidirectionally between traditional brokerage accounts and DeFi, with on-chain tokens corresponding legally and economically to a real stock, redeemable 1:1. Backpack Securities, as a regulated broker-dealer in the U.S., buys and holds the underlying assets, then withdraws positions as Solana tokens, which can be converted back into securities rights, similar to the minting and redemption of stablecoins.
The product started with the tokenization of SpaceX stock SPCX in June 2026, achieving over $470 million in on-chain transactions in the first week and over 10,000 holding addresses, followed by listings of Micron and other assets. The brokerage covers about 1,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs, with an additional 20 tokens added for 24-hour trading and redemption in September. In the first half of the year, on-chain stock transactions on Solana reached approximately $4.9 billion, with about 95% of all on-chain stock transactions concentrated here.
The platform also integrates a unified margin account, lending, and IPO share allocation into the same account. The BP token reached a historical high of $1.43 during intraday trading on September 25, with a circulation of about 250 million tokens and a cap of 1 billion tokens, leading to a fully diluted valuation exceeding $1.2 billion at one point.
In terms of market mechanisms, funds are pursuing real equity that can be traded outside of Nasdaq hours, can enter wallets, and can enter market-making pools, rather than synthetic price tokens. Buyers are on-chain traders seeking 24-hour liquidity and DeFi composability, as well as cross-border users wanting to transfer the same asset between brokerage accounts and on-chain; sellers can only provide tracking certificates and cannot redeem real stocks. The event-driven aspect comes from the roadmap for expansion to the entire market overlapping with new token highs. Beneficiaries are issuers who have obtained brokerage licenses and established access, while those under pressure are synthetic stock protocols whose liquidity is diverted by 1:1 real stocks.
Public materials clearly distinguish this structure from ordinary "price-tracking only" tokenized stocks.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Armani Ferrante first wrote the Anchor framework on Solana, then developed Mad Lads and the Backpack wallet. After the FTX collapse, he transformed the exchange into a regulated broker-dealer with an on-chain issuance channel. In March 2026, he experimented with on-chain IPO quotas with Superstate, and in June, coinciding with SpaceX's Nasdaq listing, he mapped real stocks onto the chain, using weekend liquidity to prove that "price discovery can occur on Solana after the exchange closes." Transitioning from a developer of tools to a license holder, the path involved first acquiring users and wallets, then purchasing traditional securities pipelines.
The capital path involves slicing securities rights within the DTCC and ACATS systems into mintable Solana tokens, then using the same API to transport inventory between brokerage ledgers and on-chain pools. Real stocks serve as anchors, while tokens act as tracks, with fees and BP utility tied to trading, staking, and issuance access. Expanding to 10,000 stocks means that market-making, corporate actions, dividend reinvestment, and redemption windows must be industrialized; otherwise, the depth of the 200-stock pilot cannot be linearly replicated across the entire market.
Benchmarking against Robinhood's retailization of U.S. stocks, Coinbase's retailization of crypto, and synthetic or semi-synthetic stocks like Ondo and xStocks, Backpack differentiates itself with "redeemable real stocks," competing for liquidity through redemption rights. The industry phase is shifting from conceptual tokenization to a competition for brokerage infrastructure: whoever can simultaneously satisfy U.S. securities account rules and on-chain composability will supply the remaining protocols.
Structural changes belong to the reconstruction of the industry chain. Ownership registration of stocks remains with traditional custodians, while trading, collateralization, and cross-border transport move to public chains. The mechanism is that licenses determine whether real stocks can be touched, while blockchains determine whether transactions can occur 24/7 and be programmable; once the two ledgers are welded together via API, synthetic stocks lose pricing power, and exchange opening prices must respond to overnight on-chain transactions.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Redeemable tokens are inventory; non-redeemable ones are just market quotes.
- Moving the entire market on-chain, the bottleneck lies in corporate actions, not contracts.
- Licenses govern ownership, while public chains govern transaction speed.