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Tokenized real-world assets

Coinbase Tokenized Stock (Coinbase Onchain SPV, Base)

Not approved The evidence weighs against it
Verdict
Not approved
The evidence weighs against it
Who can freeze it
Mixed control
Withdrawals
A Vested Holder redeems through Onchain Marketplace Ltd.
Reviewed
2026-09-23 · next 2026-12-23
Researched memo

Summary

Ketju does not approve Coinbase Tokenized Stock: the prospectus bars US persons from acquiring or holding the certificates, and one key on chain can block any address and burn its balance. The tokens are certificates over shares that a trust holds, and the holder does not own the shares. The issuer is Coinbase Onchain SPV Ltd, a company formed in Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone on 17 June 2026. Coinbase Global owns it through one holding company. The ADGM regulator approved one prospectus per stock. It approved NVIDIA, Meta, Apple and Alphabet on 4 August 2026, and six more, from Amazon to SpaceX, on 3 September. Each token is a B20 token on Base, Coinbase’s own chain. Alpaca Securities, a US broker-dealer, holds the shares in the SPV’s name, and the SPV holds them on trust.

Research

How it works

Every prospectus names Coinbase Onchain SPV Ltd, ADGM company 37941, as issuer. Its sole shareholder is Onchain Marketplace Holdings Ltd, ”a wholly owned subsidiary of Coinbase.” A sister company, Onchain Marketplace Ltd, is authorised by the ADGM regulator as a central securities depository. It acts as Tokenisation Entity: it mints and burns tokens, runs the freeze and pause, and keeps the Legal Register. Alpaca Securities LLC is custodian and broker. Coinbase Custody International lends the SPV its running costs. Only Authorised Participants, professional firms that the issuer approves, create new tokens, at a fee of 0.01%.

Size and holdings

Base lists the tokens, with their prospectuses, on base.org/stocks. The contract addresses there match the right names on chain. The ten listed are NVIDIA, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, SpaceX, Sandisk, Strategy and Tesla. CoinGecko shows each worth $1 million to $4 million on 23 September 2026, about $20 million in all. News reports mention Coinbase, Circle and Intel tokens. These have no prospectus and no listing, and this memo leaves them out.

What a holder owns

In the prospectus’s words, each certificate is ”a pro rata beneficial interest in the Deposited Property” that the issuer holds on trust. The prospectus adds: ”The Securities do not constitute direct investments in the Underlying.” The SPV does not pay out dividends. Alpaca receives them, the SPV takes a 5% fee, and 30% US withholding comes off. The rest buys more shares, which shows up as a rising multiplier on the token. Holders have no vote. A Vested Holder may send voting instructions, and the SPV may try to follow them.

The prospectus splits holders in two. A Vested Holder has passed the Tokenisation Entity’s compliance checks, proved control of the wallet and nominated a bank account. Onchain Marketplace Ltd enters that holder on the Legal Register. An Unvested Holder is anyone who bought on a decentralized exchange and has not done those things, and that holder is not on the register. ”The Issuer is recorded as the Registered Owner of Unvested Securities, which it holds as bare trustee” for them. That holder has an economic interest but cannot use it: ”Unvested Holders shall not be entitled to redeem Securities or withdraw Underlying.” The prospectus warns that a change in the vesting conditions, even after a holder has vested, ”may result in the freezing or confiscation” of the certificates. It also warns that someone could challenge the trust itself if the SPV fails.

Eligibility

The prospectus bars anyone from acquiring, holding, offering, selling, reselling, transferring, delivering or otherwise making the certificates available in the United States, directly or indirectly. It applies the same bar to any US person as Regulation S defines one. It also bars sanctioned persons, embargoed countries and FATF call-for-action jurisdictions. Base’s listing page says the tokens are ”Available only in eligible jurisdictions outside the US,” and it publishes no country list. There is no minimum, and tokens trade in fractions. A US client does not qualify.

Withdrawals

A Vested Holder redeems through Onchain Marketplace Ltd. The holder chooses shares sent to a brokerage account, dollars, or USDC, for a fee of 0.05%. Coinbase promises no timeframe. Every other holder can only sell on a decentralized exchange on Base, into whatever liquidity the Authorised Participants provide.

Who controls it

Base runs B20 tokens as precompiles, which is code built into the chain. The issuer therefore cannot upgrade a token, but Base can. Base’s Cobalt upgrade, due on mainnet on 30 September 2026, adds seizeWithMemo, which moves a holder’s balance to any address in one admin call. The same upgrade deprecates burnBlocked.

The issuer controls roles. The DEFAULT_ADMIN_ROLE can grant every other role. It can point each transfer scope at any allowlist or blocklist in Base’s PolicyRegistry. The BURN_BLOCKED_ROLE burns the balance of any address that the sender policy blocks. With these two roles, the issuer can freeze a holder and take back the tokens in two transactions.

On 23 September 2026, 0x38467be0… held the admin role on NVDAc and TSLAc. The address has no code, so as far as the chain shows, one private key controls it. A second plain address holds the operator and metadata roles, and a proxy contract holds mint and burn. No address held the pause or burn-blocked roles that day, but the admin can grant them at will. The prospectus describes the same powers: ”blacklist, freeze, and pause functions operable by the Tokenisation Entity” that ”operate without requiring counterparty cooperation.”

Comparison

Coinbase copied Binance’s structure closely. bStocks are also ADGM certificates over shares held in trust at Alpaca. They are also barred to US persons, and an exchange-owned depository also records them off chain. The chain and the holder checks differ. bStocks live on BNB Chain, and a holder who takes a token off Binance must deliver it back before redemption. Coinbase tokens live on Base, and anyone may trade them, but the register recognises only a vested holder. xStocks are debt notes of a Jersey issuer, and their holders have no trust interest. For a client outside the United States, we judge the Coinbase form the cleanest claim of the three. A US client can hold none of them.

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
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.
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