Six approaches in production. Three trade-offs that decide which fits your stack. Honest comparison of Alpaca, Dinari, Ondo, Backed, Superstate, and Flo.
The tokenized US equity category isn't abstract anymore. As of April 2026, more than $1 billion sits in tokenized public equities and ETFs across a handful of platforms. At least five distinct architectures in production. The marketing language across them is similar enough to be confusing. Tokenized stocks. 1:1 backed. Regulated infrastructure. The actual stacks differ in ways that matter for any fintech, neobank, or wallet picking a vendor.
Honest comparison below. Flo's in the map too. We're a builder, not a neutral analyst, and we'll flag that wherever it matters. The architecture decisions speak for themselves.
The first approach is broker-API tokenization, used by Alpaca direct. The fintech integrates Alpaca's Broker API. Alpaca custodies the underlying as a self-clearing FINRA-regulated broker-dealer. Tokenization sits inside Alpaca itself. Alpaca holds 94% market share of tokenized US stocks and ETFs and reports $480M in tokenized AUC. Strong because: single vendor, mature broker-dealer, self-clearing means no second-tier dependency. Exposed because: single-vendor concentration, Alpaca incentivized to capture more of the stack over time, no abstraction over Alpaca-specific quirks. The fintech inherits them.
The second is the SEC-registered broker-dealer wrapper, used by Dinari. Dinari operates as an SEC-registered Transfer Agent and runs a FINRA-registered Broker Dealer subsidiary, CRD 329672. The user deposits stablecoin or USD. Dinari's BD routes the order to Alpaca, which custodies the underlying. Dinari mints the dShare on-chain backed 1:1. dShares retain shareholder rights including dividends and voting where permissible. Public claims: $800M+ transaction volume, 85+ countries, 24+ API partners, 150+ US stocks. $12.7M Series A from VanEck Ventures, Hack VC, F-Prime, Blockchange. Plus a recent Layer 1 chain on Avalanche and a Flow Traders partnership for 24/7 liquidity. Strong because: first SEC-registered BD in this category, full shareholder rights, strong regulatory positioning. Exposed because: still routes through Alpaca for clearing, so it inherits the same single-broker concentration. The Dinari Financial Network L1 adds chain-specific dependency. Public-equity-only.
The third is DeFi-native wrapped certificates, Backed Finance's xStocks. EU-regulated, Swiss-jurisdiction. Tracker certificates that follow underlying US equity prices. The token represents a claim against Backed as the issuer. Underlying shares with EU custodians. Designed for permissionless DeFi composability. Trades on DEXes, can be used as collateral, no on-chain whitelist restrictions in the default form. ~$99M TVL. Strong because: DeFi-native composability is real, cross-exchange listing is broad, EU wrapper sidesteps US securities-law complexity for non-US users. Exposed because: tracker certificate model means no shareholder rights. Issuer-counterparty risk concentrated at Backed. Not the right wrapper for US-domiciled users.
The fourth is the custodial wrapper with chain-agnostic distribution, Ondo Global Markets. Ondo issues GM tokens redeemable through collateral agents. Underlying shares custodied at SEC-regulated broker-dealers, Alpaca primary. Available on Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana. Chainlink for oracle pricing, LayerZero for cross-chain. Ondo Global Listing in February 2026 added same-day tokenization of IPOs. $360M+ TVL, 200+ tokenized assets, target of 1,000+. Strong because: largest scale by TVL, multi-chain distribution out of the box, IPO same-day tokenization is novel. Exposed because: GM tokens don't pass through shareholder rights. Alpaca dependency. Public-equity-only.
The fifth is native SEC-registered tokens, Superstate Opening Bell. The token is the SEC-registered share. Not a wrapper, not a synthetic, not a tracker certificate. Public companies issue or convert their exchange-listed common stock directly onto Solana or Ethereum. Past $1B in AUM across Superstate's tokenization platforms. Strong because: cleanest legal model. No wrapper, no counterparty layer between token and share. Best long-term position if regulators converge on "the token is the share." Exposed because: requires the underlying public company to convert or issue native. High friction. Limited universe. Not a fit for a fintech that wants to give users exposure to AAPL today, since AAPL isn't a Superstate-native token.
The sixth is the multi-broker, multi-asset API layer. That's what we're building. Disclosure first. Flo is a developer API that abstracts over multiple prime brokers (Interactive Brokers and Alpaca Securities) and supports both public and private market tokenization through the same surface. Mint, redeem, positions, borrow. Each endpoint routes to the right broker integration based on security type, jurisdictional gating, execution quality. User-facing settlement is instant. Broker-exchange leg settles T+1 against DTCC. Where we think we're strong: two-broker redundancy is structurally different from any other public-equity tokenizer. Public + private through one API isn't covered by anyone in the current market. Settlement framing distinguishes the user-facing leg from the broker-exchange leg without papering over the difference. Where we're exposed: pre-launch, no production scale comparable to Alpaca, Ondo, or Dinari. No SEC-registered broker-dealer subsidiary, so regulatory positioning sits downstream of our broker partners.
There isn't a single right answer. The right architecture depends on your users' geography, your appetite for vendor concentration, your need for shareholder rights, and whether your roadmap requires private-market tokenization.
Two questions worth asking any vendor in this category. What happens when your prime broker has an outage? If the answer is "we'd be down too," you're inheriting their concentration. If the answer is "we route to the secondary broker automatically," ask for the runbook. What exactly is settling instantly, and what is settling on standard timelines? If the vendor can't separate the user-facing leg from the broker-exchange leg crisply, the marketing is ahead of the architecture.
The category is still forming. The vendor map will look different in twelve months. The fault lines above will still be the right way to evaluate any new entrant, including, eventually, ours.
