Research summary
Coinbase’s tokenized stocks are certificates, not shares, and Coinbase will not sell them to Americans. The issuer is Coinbase Onchain SPV Ltd, a company formed in Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone on 17 June 2026 and owned, through one holding company, by Coinbase Global. The ADGM regulator approved one prospectus per stock: 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. The legal form is the custodial one. Alpaca Securities, a US broker-dealer, holds the shares in the SPV’s name, and the SPV holds them on trust; each token is "a pro rata beneficial interest" in that pool. The catch is who counts as a holder. The record of title is a Legal Register kept by another Coinbase company, Onchain Marketplace Ltd, and a person who buys the token on chain is not on it. They are an "Unvested Holder": the SPV is the registered owner and holds for them as bare trustee, and they may not redeem or instruct a vote until they pass Coinbase’s checks. For a US advisor’s client the answer is no. The prospectus says the certificates "MAY NOT BE ACQUIRED, HELD, OFFERED, SOLD" in the United States or to a US person. On chain, one address with no code holds the admin role on the contracts we read, and B20 gives that role the power to block any address and burn its balance.
Observable review triggers
- Coinbase opens the certificates to US persons, or files a US-registered offering of them
- The admin key grants the burn-blocked or pause role, or blocks a holder
- Coinbase changes the vesting conditions or cancels unvested positions
- Custody moves from Alpaca, or the trust is challenged in an insolvency
Facts on file
- Research assessment
- Adverse
- Client selection
- Not considered
- Exposure
- tokenized RWA
- Chains examined
- Base
- Instruments
- NVDAc, GOOGLc, METAc, AAPLc, MSFTc, AMZNc, SPCXc, SNDKc, MSTRc, TSLAc
- Reviewed
- Next review