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Tokenized real-world assets

bTokens (Backed Finance, winding down)

Not approved The evidence weighs against it

Review open since 2026-10-04: BTokens (tracker certificates by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, ”b” tickers, winding down) on Fantom: the power to change the contract code is now no, the file recorded yes (read at block 0). Ketju will review the file before any client action. A draft revision dated 2026-10-04 is under audit and would change the assessment. The verdict stands until the review closes.

Verdict
Not approved
The evidence weighs against it
Who can freeze it
No freeze key
Withdrawals
The issuer redeems for cash.
Reviewed
2026-09-26
Researched memo

Summary

Ketju does not approve bTokens: Backed Finance is closing the line by the end of 2026, and the terms bar US persons. Backed Assets (JE) Limited of Jersey, the company that issues xStocks, issues each bToken as a tracker certificate, a debt note. The note follows an ETF or a share one for one. The largest by value track the iShares Core S&P 500 fund (bCSPX, about $24 million) and a short US Treasury fund (bIB01, about $19 million). The holder owns a claim on collateral that a Swiss bank holds for that product. A security agent can seize the collateral if the issuer fails. The holder owns no part of the fund or the company. Backed, now part of Kraken, said in March 2026 that bTokens ”will be gradually wound down by the end of 2026” and asked holders to swap into xStocks. The issuer sells directly only to qualified professional investors, with a CHF 5,000 minimum.

Research

Issuer

Backed Assets GmbH of Zug issued the first bTokens in 2023 under a base prospectus of 9 May 2022. The January 2023 final terms for bCSPX name that company. On 23 February 2024 the Jersey regulator recorded its merger into Backed Assets (JE) Limited, and later final terms name the Jersey company. Backed Finance AG owns the issuer and acts as Tokenizer, the party that mints and burns. Payward, Kraken’s parent, bought Backed Finance in December 2025.

Backed’s own blog post says ”bTokens and xStocks share the same issuer, prospectus, collateral structure, and investor protections.” The issuer is the same, but the prospectus now differs. Section 8 of the 8 May 2026 base prospectus lists ”products, which are continued to be offered” and begins at number 18, AAPLx. Numbers 1 to 17 are the bTokens: bCSPX is product 1 and bIB01 is product 5. A search of the prospectus and its first supplement finds none of their names or ISINs. The old final terms, the latest dated July 2025, still govern the notes in issue.

The terms also differ. A bToken is priced in Swiss francs with a CHF 5,000 minimum and no management fee. An xStock is priced in dollars with a $5,000 minimum and a management fee of up to 0.25% a year. The bTokens run on nine EVM chains through their own contracts, and two of them also run on Solana. xStocks run on eleven networks. Backed runs two programs from one issuer, so Ketju reviews them in separate memos.

What the holder owns

A bToken is an open-ended tracker certificate under Swiss law. It is issued as a ledger-based security under article 973d of the Swiss Code of Obligations. The token ledger is the record of title: the final terms say ”The entitlement to the securitized Securities exclusively results from the Securities Ledger.” When an investor subscribes, the issuer buys the ETF or share through its broker, Maerki Baumann & Co. or InCore Bank. It books the asset as collateral for that product alone. The holder has ”a sole claim to the Collateral allocated to the specific Product they are holding.” The holder has no claim on other products or on the issuer’s other assets. Security Agent Services AG holds a Swiss-law pledge over the collateral for the holders and can enforce it if the issuer defaults.

The holder therefore has a secured debt claim and owns no share. The terms say holders ”are not entitled to any rights or claims to the Underlying.” The holder gets no vote and no dividend. The ETFs these notes track accumulate their income, and the stock notes fold dividends into the price. The SEC staff’s January 2026 statement calls a third party’s note that references a security the synthetic model. The note is not insured. The holder depends on the custodian, the security agent and the issuer’s solvency.

Eligibility

The issuer sells new notes itself ”exclusively to Qualified Professional Investors.” Retail investors ”may subscribe via issuance only through an Authorized Participant.” In Switzerland the notes may go to professional investors only. The terms bar US persons outright. The minimum subscription is CHF 5,000, about $6,076 at the ECB rates of 23 September 2026. Each subscription or redemption carries investor fees of up to 0.5%, with a minimum of CHF 100. Nothing in the terms stops a retail buyer outside the barred countries from holding a note bought on a secondary market.

Withdrawals

The issuer redeems for cash. A holder who has passed the issuer’s KYC places a Redemption Order at any time. The issuer pays, less fees, by the fifth business day. The issuer may also call any product on 30 business days’ notice. During the wind-down Backed lets clients with an issuer account swap into the matching xStock. Equities swap one for one, bCSPX swaps into SPYx, and the four bond funds swap into TBLLx at a ratio the issuer sets. A holder with no issuer account can only sell on a decentralized venue such as CoW Swap. As trading thins toward the end of 2026, that holder will find fewer buyers.

Who controls it

We read bCSPX on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche and BNB Chain, and bIB01 on Base, on 23 September 2026. Each is an upgradeable proxy. On Ethereum the owner is a 2-of-3 Safe (0x22f2dfe8…). The Safe can mint, pause, and change the contract through the proxy admin. Separate minter and pauser multisigs hold day-to-day roles. Every transfer checks a sanctions list (0x40c57923…), and a single key (0xdf900dc8…) owns that list. With one signature, the holder of that key can stop any address from sending or receiving, so Backed can freeze any holder. The deployed burn takes tokens only from the caller. That matches the terms: the Tokenizer may burn ”only with regard to ledger-based securities held by itself.” The terms also say ”A future update of the smart contract functionality may introduce a freezing function and/or extend the burning function,” and the owner multisig can make that upgrade.

On Avalanche and BNB Chain the implementation has no verified source. We could not confirm the freeze or the burn there, but we confirmed the pause and the upgrade. We had no endpoint to read Gnosis, Fantom, Sonic, or the Solana copy of bTSLA, so this memo does not cover those contracts. Backed’s token API lists all seventeen bTokens as still trading except bMSFT.

Comparison

bTokens, xStocks, Ondo Global Markets and Robinhood’s stock tokens are all notes from an offshore issuer that track a US share or fund. All of them bar US persons. bTokens are the oldest and the smallest line, about $65 million across thirteen tokens that CoinGecko lists. They are the only line whose issuer is closing it. Their collateral sits at Swiss banks, while the others use a US broker. That difference matters less than the shrinking market. A holder who cannot pass Backed’s KYC should expect fewer and wider quotes each month to December 2026.

Sources

Each claim above comes from one of these sources. Where Ketju could not verify a number, the memo states that.

The asset and the chain

This memo covers the protocol. A position also holds an asset and settles on a chain. Whichever of the three holds the most power over the position decides who can freeze it. These tables describe control and do not judge quality.

ChainVerdictFreezeWhat it can do
EthereumApproved No freeze key Ethereum has no sequencer, no upgrade key and no operator who can be compelled to act; rule changes require social consensus.
Polygon PoSNot approved Mixed control a public validator set orders transactions, but a 5-of-9 multisig can instantly upgrade staking and canonical bridge contracts, and a 5-of-8 multisig controls custom child tokens.
Arbitrum OneApproved with limits Mixed control a single sequencer orders more than 99% of transactions, and admin keys can upgrade bridge contracts on a timelock of about 7 days.
AvalancheApproved with limits Governed, no freeze no party can freeze or seize C-Chain funds, but one vendor writes the only production client and Messari measured over a third of stake hosted on AWS.
BNB Smart ChainNot approved Issuer can freeze the validator set concentrates around one company, and the chain’s operators have halted it on purpose.
BaseApproved with limits Mixed control Coinbase, one regulated US company, operates the only sequencer, and admin keys can upgrade bridge contracts within about 7 days.
Gnosis ChainApproved with limits Governed, no freeze anyone can become a validator, but xDAI and the canonical bridges add an 8-of-15 governor multisig outside the base consensus grade.
SolanaApproved with limits Governed, no freeze no admin key can seize funds, but stake is concentrating and the Nakamoto coefficient is below 25.
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