The tightest tokenized stocks we measured are Coinbase's.
A wallet-by-wallet trace of the market for Coinbase's tokenized stocks, measured against five rival issuers.
- 37%
- 67%
- 0.09%
- 0.10%
- 21%
- $29M
01 · What a buyer seesA token that keeps pace with the share
Coinbase sells tokens that track US shares such as Nvidia, Apple and Tesla. They trade around the clock, and buyers outside the US hold them in their own wallets. In US market hours their price typically sits within 0.09% of the real share. Of six issuers we compared, none stays closer.
In the 30 days to 4 October, $1.45 billion of these tokens changed hands. A single group of 108 wallets did 37% of it. Every one of its trades was paid from, and delivered to, a wallet our labels identify as Wintermute's. Wintermute is a large crypto trading firm.
Two more groups of wallets trade the same way, and together the three did 67% of all trading. Bitquery indexes every trade on Base, the blockchain Coinbase runs, so we traced how each group's wallets were funded and what each group paid against the real share.
02 · What these tokens areHow Coinbase's tokenized stocks work
Coinbase launched its tokenized stocks on 24 August with Nvidia, Apple, Meta and Alphabet, CoinDesk reported. The first four were minted on 12 August, and by 5 October there were 39. Coinbase says each token is backed by a real share held in custody separate from Coinbase. People in the US cannot buy them.
Only approved firms can create new tokens or cash them in for shares. Coinbase's site says that right is limited to institutional partners that have passed its identity checks, the same model exchange-traded funds use. Everyone else buys and sells on a DEX, a pool of tokens and dollars on Base whose price moves with each trade.
Trading took off quickly. The tokens did $164 million of trades in August, their first weeks, and about nine times as much in the 30 days to 4 October.
03 · The largest group108 wallets, one contract, one Wintermute wallet
The largest group is 108 wallets. Each got its first ETH from the same address, in batches going back to 2024, and all but two got the same amount. All of them send their trades through one contract, and no other wallet uses it. Over the 30 days they did $543 million of trades in Coinbase's tokens, 37% of all trading.
The stock tokens do not stay in those 108 wallets. In every one of the group's trades, the token moved between the pool and a single wallet, and so did the dollars paying for it. Our labels identify that wallet as one Wintermute uses for market making, the business of always being ready to buy or sell.
The group trades well beyond Coinbase's tokens. In the same 30 days it did $6.2 billion of other trades on Base, mostly in cbBTC and WETH, Base's versions of bitcoin and ether.
04 · How they tradeBuy below the share, sell above it
While the stock market is open, a token's fair price is simply the share's own price. We compared each trade with the share price in the same five minutes. The largest group bought 0.08% below the share on average and sold 0.10% above it.
That is arbitrage: buying a token when it is cheap against the share and selling when it is dear. Each of those trades pushes the token's price back toward the share's. Over the 30 days the group bought $268 million of tokens and sold $276 million.
The other two groups show the same pattern. More than half of the largest group's trading, 54%, came while the US market was closed. There is no share price to compare against in those hours, so they are left out of this test.
05 · Two more groupsThe same method, owners unknown
The second group has 17 wallets, each given the same small amount of ETH by one address within 20 minutes on a day in March. It did 23% of all trading. The third has four wallets, funded the same way on 2 September, the day before Coinbase minted its second batch of tokens. It did 7%.
The second and third groups keep the tokens they trade in their own trading contracts. Neither the funding addresses nor the contracts carry a label in our data, so we do not know who runs them.
06 · The resultThe closest price of six issuers
We ran the same price test for six issuers of stock tokens: Coinbase, Robinhood, Binance, xStocks, Backpack and Ondo. To keep it fair we used stocks that paid no dividend in the window, since dividends shift some tokens' prices, and each issuer's busiest token for each stock.
Coinbase's tokens typically sat 0.09% from the share. Those of xStocks, Backpack, Robinhood and Binance sat 0.13% to 0.18% away. Ondo's tokens trade thinly and sat about eight times as far away. Coinbase was closest on four of the five stocks it shares with the others, and xStocks was closer on Tesla.
| Stock | Coinbase | xStocks | Backpack | Robinhood | Binance | Ondo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | 0.07% | 0.06% | none | 0.10% | 0.10% | 0.68% |
| Amazon | 0.06% | 0.14% | none | 0.16% | 0.23% | none |
| Strategy | 0.12% | 0.13% | 0.14% | 0.20% | 0.23% | none |
| SpaceX | 0.09% | 0.10% | 0.10% | 0.10% | 0.13% | 0.74% |
| Palantir | 0.09% | 0.20% | none | 0.17% | none | none |
| AMD | none | none | 0.15% | 0.28% | none | none |
By trading, Coinbase ranks fourth of the six, behind Robinhood, Binance and xStocks. Its average trade was $902, against less than $300 at each of the others, and 18% of its trading came in five-figure trades or larger.
07 · Where new tokens come fromFive wallets receive every new token
New tokens appear when an approved partner buys real shares and Coinbase mints the matching tokens on Base. Every mint since 12 August went to one of just five wallets. By value, an unlabelled wallet received 51% of the new tokens. A wallet our labels identify as a Wintermute hot wallet, used for day-to-day transfers, received 21%.
So wallets labelled as Wintermute's show up at both ends, receiving new tokens and settling the largest block of trading. Nothing on the chain shows an agreement between Coinbase and Wintermute, and we make no claim of one.
08 · Where the tokens sitA third in pools, 14% in Aave
About $29 million of Coinbase's stock tokens existed on 5 October, yet trading in the month before came to 51 times that supply. The other issuers' tokens can also be held and traded on exchanges and in apps, away from the chain, so we do not compare turnover across issuers.
A third of the tokens sat in DEX pools, ready for the next trade. The largest single holder was Aave, the crypto lending app, with 14% of all the tokens by value. Since 25 September its new Aave V4 market on Base has let people outside the US borrow USDC against seven of them. The two wallets labelled as Wintermute's held 10% between them.
09 · What it meansA tight price that rests on three traders
Of the six issuers we compared, Coinbase's tokens track their shares most closely, and the trading data shows how. Three groups of wallets buy whenever a token slips below its share and sell when it rises above. Those three did 67% of all trading in the 30 days to 4 October, and the largest settles every trade with a wallet labelled as Wintermute's.
If any of the three stopped, the tight price would depend on who took their place.
10 · How we checkedMethod
We found Coinbase's stock tokens by the contract that mints them, then took every DEX trade in them from our trade data. Wallets were grouped by the contract they send trades through, and each group's first funding was checked against the chain. Prices were compared with five-minute exchange prices during US market hours. Labels come from Bitquery's own labels data, and balances were read from a Base node on 5 October. Aave's market was identified by its verified contract code and the seven stocks it holds.
The same checks can be run with the Bitquery MCP. Our earlier pieces cover tokenized stocks on Solana, Robinhood's tokenized stocks, fees on pre-IPO stock tokens and how small most stock-token trades are.
11 · The recordContracts, wallets and transactions behind this story
| What | Address or transaction |
|---|---|
| Minting contract | 0xd1ca…664c |
| Meta token (METAc) | 0xb200…707c |
| Wintermute-labelled wallet, trading | 0x51c7…2a7f |
| Wintermute-labelled wallet, mints | 0xf819…73aa |
| Group 1 contract | 0x83d5…90d5 |
| Group 1 funder | 0x714d…a741 |
| Group 2 contract | 0x278d…f8d2 |
| Group 2 funder | 0x04ac…a50a |
| Group 3 contract | 0xb3ae…a0fd |
| Group 3 funder | 0x7555…8099 |
| Busiest minting wallet | 0x751a…4d5e |
| Aave market on Base, holds tokens as collateral | 0xa4d5…864e |
| Group 1 trade, Meta token | 0x559c…e8e7 |
| Mint to the Wintermute-labelled wallet | 0x4a56…c606 |
FAQ
What are Coinbase tokenized stocks?
Tokens on Base, Coinbase's blockchain, that track US shares such as Nvidia and Apple. Coinbase says each one is backed by a real share held in custody separate from Coinbase. They are not offered to people in the US.
Do Coinbase tokenized stocks pay dividends?
Not as new tokens. Coinbase says your token count stays the same and an onchain multiplier rises instead, reinvesting the dividend after withholding and fees.
Who trades them most?
Three groups of wallets did two thirds of all trading in the 30 days to 4 October. The largest did 37%, and every one of its trades settled with a wallet our labels identify as Wintermute's.
What is Wintermute?
A crypto trading firm that makes markets, standing ready to buy or sell tokens. Our labels identify two wallets on Base as Wintermute's: one settles 37% of all trading in these tokens, and one receives new ones.
Is Wintermute Coinbase's market maker?
We cannot say. The chain shows wallets our labels identify as Wintermute's receiving new tokens and settling 37% of all trading. It shows no agreement with Coinbase.
How close is the token price to the real stock?
In US market hours, typically within 0.09% for the six stocks we tested, the closest of six issuers.
Can you borrow against Coinbase tokenized stocks?
Outside the US, yes. Since 25 September Aave's V4 market on Base has accepted seven of them as collateral for USDC loans. It held 14% of all Coinbase tokenized stocks by value on 5 October.
Who can create new Coinbase tokenized stocks?
Coinbase says only approved institutional partners can mint or redeem. Every mint so far went to one of five wallets.
Trading figures cover DEX trades on Base from 5 September to 4 October 2026, against stablecoins and ETH, one row per token per transaction. Coinbase's trading since launch is read from Base's full trade history.
Wallet groups are wallets that send trades through the same contract. Each group's wallets got their first ETH from one address; we checked a sample of those transactions against the chain. Who runs Groups 2 and 3 is not known.
The link to Wintermute rests on labels. Bitquery's labels data identifies the two wallets named here as Wintermute's, and a second source we checked agrees. The chain shows what the wallets did, not who controls them.
The price test uses five-minute exchange prices for six stocks with no dividend in the window, US regular session only. It compares each issuer's busiest token per stock.
Mint counts are read from Base transaction logs from 12 August to 5 October 2026. Balances and supply were read from a Base node on 5 October and valued at each stock's last exchange close.
What Coinbase says about the tokens is taken from its tokenization page as it stood on 5 October 2026 and from CoinDesk's launch report of 24 August 2026.
This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only and reflects analysis of publicly available on-chain data as of the dates indicated. It does not constitute legal, financial, compliance, or investment advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any token or asset.
The findings describe trades, transfers and balances observed on Base between 12 August and 5 October 2026. They may be incomplete or incorrect and may be revised as more data becomes available.
References to Coinbase, Wintermute, Robinhood, Binance, xStocks, Backpack, Ondo or any other named company describe what the public record and our labels show about wallets and tokens. They are not statements about any party's compliance, solvency or conduct, and nothing here asserts that any party acted unlawfully or has any agreement with another.
Nothing herein should be relied upon as a definitive determination of fact. Readers should conduct their own independent verification before taking any action. The authors and publisher accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on this material. All trademarks and company names are the property of their respective owners.
Reported by Gaurav Agarwal for Bitquery Research, with AI tools; every figure was checked against the raw data.
Ask these questions in plain English
The trades in this story come from Bitquery's data for Base. The Bitquery MCP server puts that data behind an AI assistant, so you can ask who trades a token, which wallets fund them, or how a price compares across venues, without writing the query yourself.