Part I: The problem

3. Why tokenization stopped at 193

Tokenized stocks were supposed to be the answer, and Solana proved the model: real shares, held one for one by a regulated custodian, issued as tokens.

But it proved it for a menu of names it chose, tradeable during US market hours. Extending the model to a foreign stock means crossing the wall: licensing into the home market, custodying in its system, settling in its currency, filing its paperwork. For an individual investor that crossing is impossible. For an institution it is expensive, slow, and only worth doing name by name.

So nobody did it, and the head of the global market went unlisted. Custody was never the wrong model. It had simply never been carried across the wall, to exactly the companies that live behind the most plumbing.