Tokenized Equities Platform Launches on Base

Block Street is building a unified liquidity layer for tokenized equities, having raised $11.5 million in a strategic funding round led by Hack VC with participation from firms like DWF Labs. The firm is developing two main systems: "Aqua," an intent-based aggregator for finding the best prices across multiple tokenized asset issuers, and "Everst," a lending and clearing system for tokenized stocks. The collaboration aims to embed ST0x's tokenized equities directly into Block Street's liquidity and risk management engine on Base. This allows for DeFi-native functionalities such as margin trading, borrowing, and structured products using tokenized stocks as collateral, all while maintaining compliance through regulated off-chain custody. ST0x operates as a decentralized platform for trading tokenized stock assets, offering synthetic shares of companies like NVIDIA, Coinbase, and Tesla on the Base mainnet. The platform integrates with brokers like IBKR to aggregate price feeds and uses smart contracts to automate trades, aiming to bridge traditional finance with DeFi capabilities. The choice of Base as the settlement layer is strategic, targeting the network's growing stablecoin liquidity, which stands at approximately $4.67 billion, and its high transaction throughput. Jesse Pollak, who leads ecosystem development for Base, has articulated a vision of "real financial markets moving on-chain," a thesis this integration directly supports. This partnership taps into the broader trend of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, a market valued at over $35 billion as of late 2025. The move signifies growing institutional interest in using blockchain for more efficient and transparent trading and settlement of traditional financial assets. By combining ST0x's regulated issuance with Block Street's DeFi-native liquidity solutions, the platform aims to solve key fragmentation and access issues in the on-chain equity market. This infrastructure allows users to deploy tokenized stocks in sophisticated strategies that are typically confined to institutional finance.