Tokenized Stocks: Why You Do Not Own a Share and Which Risk Hangs on the Issuer

On August 12, 2026, Crypto.com switched on a product in the European Economic Area that looks like buying shares and is legally something else entirely. It is called Tokenized Stocks, covers 1,500 US stocks and funds according to the company, and runs around the clock in the firm's own app. Germany belongs to the EEA, so the offering is aimed at you as well.

The provider's announcement contains one sentence that frames the whole thing: investors acquire no legal or beneficial ownership of the underlying assets and none of the shareholder rights attached to them. Anyone wanting to trade shares through a crypto app is not buying a stake in a company there but a contract on its price. This construction now turns up at several large trading venues. This article sets out what you hold, who stands behind it and how to recognise genuine ownership of a security.

Tokenized stocks are derivatives, not stakes in the company

A share is a stake in the share capital of a stock corporation. Membership rights come with it: a vote at the annual general meeting, a claim on the profit share, a subscription right in a capital increase, a right to information. Whoever holds shares in a securities account has a stake in the company, even where custody runs through a bank and a central securities depository.

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