Can Robinhood or Kraken’s tokenized stocks ever be truly decentralized?

Can tokenized stocks from centralized issuers like Robinhood or Kraken ever be truly decentralized? Experts are divided.

Crypto is supposed to be about freedom permissionless networks, immutable ownership, assets that no government or intermediary can arbitrarily revoke. At least, that was Satoshis dream a vision that has admittedly faded over time as reality butted in.

Amid all the other dying idealism, along came stock tokens, shiny digital wrappers for traditional equities such as Tesla, Apple and Amazon. Suddenly, the crypto space found itself dressed up in Wall Streets regulatory straitjacket.

Stock tokens, as currently structured, such as Kraken’s, Robinhood’s and in the future, Coinbase’s are about as decentralized as a Goldman Sachs board meeting. Theyre digital and tokenized, but users must pass KYC to acquire them; they can only move between whitelisted addresses, and issuers can freeze or revoke them at will. In short, they arent really crypto at all. Theyre securities in a digital costume, playing fancy dress at a DeFi masquerade.

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