After a ban on Fulbright securities, a new cure would be to buy stock in the chain

By Mr. Liu Honglin

 

Many of the friends who have bought Hong Kong's shares are on the same news these days。

On 22 May 2026, the CSRC issued a press release in which it opened an investigation into the conduct of tiger securities, wealthy securities, longbridge securities and related subjects operating illegally in the country and abroad, and informed it of administrative penalties. One detail is set out here: it is not yet a final decision on punishment and the parties still have the right to be heard, to be heard。

On the same day, eight departments, such as the SEC, also issued the Programme for the Implementation of the Integrated Management of the Operations of the Illegal Cross-Border Securities Futures Fund. The focus of this programme is not simply on punishing a single Internet couponer, but on concentrating on the entire chain of foreign securities, futures, funds and operations for domestic investors without authorization. According to the programme ' s description, the regulation is intended to deal with both the conduct of offshore agencies in marketing within the country, opening accounts, receiving or processing trade orders, money transfers, etc., and the provision of support to such operations by domestic entities through websites, trading software development operations, customer services, etc. The programme also established a two-year centralized consolidation period, with stock operations allowing, in principle, only one-way sales and transfers of funds。

A lot of ordinary users used to understand it, and they understood it as, "Who would I choose?" The focus of regulatory concern, however, is not on which trading software is installed on the user ' s mobile phone, but on whether the software is behind it providing securities services in the country without authorization. As long as internal access, trade orders, system operations, customer service support and access to funds constitute a de facto closure of the exhibition, it is no longer simply a matter of ordinary Internet products。

So when the news came out, someone had come to me and said, "Can you trade Hong Kong's shares in the chain, since the traditional cross-border issuer's path is getting narrower?"

I'm not surprised about that。

Last year I went to Singapore to talk to a couple of investment friends. A friend who used to be less interested in encrypted money, but he started to focus on Web3 last year, not because of how much bitcoin went up, or because of which chain told a new story, but because of the United States stock. His idea is straightforward: if the future of apples, Inverdas, Tesla, Bump ETFs can be held, transferred, settled, or even entered into the DeFi portfolio with chain accounts, the zone chain is no longer just an asset game inside the encryption circle, but may become a new interface for global financial assets。

This is an interesting phenomenon。

The U.S. stock chain makes it easier for traditional investors to understand Web3 because it does not require people to believe in a new, unknown asset, but rather to place stocks, ETFs, and index products that you already know in the context of wallets, stable currency settlements, and smart contracts. For some investors, this is far more intuitive than listening to a collection of public chain performances, consensus mechanisms and ecological incentives。

But it's not as simple as you think. For local investors in China and China, the United States share in the chain is not a “treasure” to circumvent regulation. The risk is not necessarily lower if a person wants to do it by replacing the account opening, receipt, transaction, holding, with wallets, USDT and chain tokens, which was previously completed in the cross-border voucher company App。

More precisely, it should be: the US stock on the chain solves the question of “how traditional assets are chained up and how qualified users can access the US stock openings by chaining”; and it does not solve the question of whether “residents in the country can bypass securities, foreign exchange and virtual currency regulation to buy the US stock.”。

This is a serious infrastructure direction for compliance agencies and technical service providers. For ordinary investors, if only to find a new source, it is recommended to calm down。

Where's America's demand coming from

Why did America's shares appear on the chain? Traditional securities markets are already very mature, but for many non-United States investors buying a United States share is not as simple as opening a page and clicking on it. The way the opening materials are prepared, how the funds go in, how the tax documents are processed, who the account is to communicate with when it is controlled, is familiar to professional institutions, but for ordinary users, every step is to deal with banks, vouchers and compliance processes. When experience is not good enough, markets naturally look for new entry points。

THIS GAP IS MORE PRONOUNCED FOR ENCRYPTED USERS. THEY'RE USED TO WALLET TRANSFERS, CHAIN SETTLEMENTS AND SEVEN DAYS, 24 HOURS OF MONEY FLOW. ONCE A FEW SHARES OR ETFS ARE DEPLOYED, THEY CAN BE RETURNED TO BANK ACCOUNTS, VOUCHER ACCOUNTS AND TRADITIONAL CLEARING SYSTEMS. THE LINK BETWEEN CHAIN ASSETS AND TRADITIONAL ASSETS IS NOT TECHNICALLY UNCONNECTED AT ALL, BUT RATHER FRAGMENTED。

THIS IS WHERE THE AMERICAN STOCK IS ATTRACTIVE: IT'S TRYING TO PUT U.S. STOCK OR ETF'S ECONOMIC EXPOSURE ON THE CHAIN. USERS SEE A STOCK CERTIFICATE, SUCH AS A CHAINED VERSION OF A UNITED STATES EQUITY OR ETF; THERE MAY BE ISSUERS, VOUCHERS, TRUSTEES, MARKETERS, PROPHECIES, SMART CONTRACTS AND DISTRIBUTION PLATFORMS BEHIND THEM. IN PRODUCTS WITH RELATIVELY COMPLETE DISCLOSURE AND HIGHER COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS, SPECIAL EMPHASIS IS OFTEN PLACED ON BOTTOM ASSET SUPPORT, SEGREGATION OF CUSTODIANS, QUALIFIED INVESTOR RESTRICTIONS, FORECLOSURE ARRANGEMENTS AND LEGAL DOCUMENTS。

It can be seen in two layers: accounts, certificates and entry points in the chain, and what really determines under the chain are bottom assets, hosting arrangements, legal documents, user access and exit routes。

A chain of stock products can't be judged solely by the existence of apples, invertas or Tesla. It is important to look down whether the bottom assets are actually purchased, who holds the assets, how the issue documents are written, whether the users have the right to purchase, and whether they can be redeemed, sold or claimed。

This is also where the chain is most susceptible to misinterpretation. It doesn't necessarily mean that you own a stock of American companies directly。

Two types of pathways are now largely visible in the industry。

The first is where the issuer makes a chained financial certificate of a bottom stock or an ETF. For example, under the Backed flag xStocks, the official legal document describes it as a chain-based transferable security in the form of a “tracking voucher”, i.e. a structured product that tracks the price of the underlying stock or ETF. It emphasizes that each xStock tracks publicly listed shares or ETFs in a 1:1 manner and is fully secured by the corresponding lower-level assets, but also makes it clear that the holder does not thereby acquire voting rights or shareholder rights in the lower-level stocks. In other words, you've got a financial certificate supported by a bottom asset, not just a shareholder of a listed company。

The other category is where large platforms use equity certificates as an investment portal for users in specific areas. For example, Robinhod 2025 introduced US equities and ETF certificates for EU users, focusing on giving European qualified users access to US stock in their applications and supporting a red-and-long trading experience. When Ondo Global Markets went online in 2025, he also moved more than 100 United States stocks and ETFs to the chain for non-United States eligible users. Their common denominator is not “everyone can buy”, but they are all trying to place their products within a specific framework of compliance distribution。

Stock markets in the chain are also growing in size. CoinGecko 2026 RWA reported that the market value of stock in the chain increased from approximately $2.09 million on 30 June 2025 to about $487 million on 31 March 2026; stock transactions in the chain in the first quarter of 2026 amounted to approximately $15.1 billion, which has exceeded total transactions in the second half of 2025。

But this cannot be misinterpreted as “the US stock in the chain has replaced the traditional coupons”. The same report cautions that even though the head chain stock has been connected to a number of centralized exchanges, the volume of transactions relative to the real American stock market remains small. This direction is growing rapidly, but it is not the mainstream securities market itself。

I would prefer to see it as an ongoing infrastructure experiment, rather than a mature investment shortcut。

What should investors care about

For individual investors, it is not the technical terminology that needs to be most vigilant about the US stock chain, but the illusion that the page looks like a stock. Many products are displayed at the front end as stock codes, real-time prices, drops and trading buttons, which users can easily treat as American shares in traditional coupons. But in legal relationships, you can buy a certificate of support for a bottom-up stock, or a structured product, a synthetic asset, or even a price opening in a platform's internal books。

The first thing is to see right. Foreclosures, dividends, voting rights, disposal of assets at the bottom of the issuer ' s bankruptcy, institutional problems with whom to look for, are not in the certificate name, but in the legal documents and product structure. If a project focuses only on “tradables” “prices to follow US equity”, investors are very cautious when it is unclear about bottom asset, hosting and exit arrangements。

THE SECOND THING IS TO LOOK AT IDENTITY AND GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITS. NOW, THE RELATIVELY TRANSPARENT CHAIN OF INFORMATION ON THE MARKET, THE UNITED STATES STOCK PRODUCTS, ARE CLEAR AS TO WHICH AREAS ARE AVAILABLE, WHICH AREAS ARE NOT, WHICH IDENTIFICATION OR QUALIFIED INVESTORS ARE REQUIRED TO PASS. MANY PRODUCTS FOCUS ON NON-UNITED STATES USERS, BUT “NON-UNITED STATES” DOES NOT MEAN THAT “THE WORLD IS FREE TO BUY”, LET ALONE THAT “RESIDENTS OF MAINLAND CHINA CAN BUY DIRECTLY THROUGH THEIR WALLETS”. IF A USER BYPASSES THE PLATFORM LIMITS BY FALSE IDENTITIES, PROXY IDENTITIES, VPNS, OFFSHORE MOBILE PHONE NUMBERS OR OTHER MEANS, SHORT-TERM ACCESS APPEARS LIKELY, OFTEN WITH TWO DIFFICULTIES: THE PLATFORM MAY FREEZE, RESTRICT, RECANT WHEN DISCOVERED; IN THE EVENT OF A DISPUTE, IT IS DIFFICULT FOR USERS TO CLAIM COMPLETE PROTECTION WITH AN OTHERWISE NON-COMPLIANT ACCESS PATH。

The third thing is the source of funding. Individual domestic purchases require a genuine and legal basis for transactions, and individual requisition applications clearly state that they may not be used for capital items that have not yet been opened, such as offshore purchases, securities investments, etc. A person who could not otherwise use a personal remittance line to purchase an offshore stock would now switch to a stable currency and then to buy a United States share in the chain, and would not have made the use of the funds compliant by bypassing an additional wallet。

The regulation of virtual currency in the interior of China can be described as an ongoing addition. On 6 February 2026, eight departments, including the People ' s Bank, issued a circular on further prevention and disposal of associated risks, such as virtual currency (2026] 42). It continues to make it clear that virtual currency does not have the same legal status as legal currency, that operations such as exchange of French currency and virtual currency, exchange of virtual currency, financing of currency issuance, trading in financial products related to virtual currency are illegal financial activities that are strictly prohibited and legally prohibited, and that entities and individuals abroad are not allowed to provide virtual currency-related services in any form illegally to subjects within their territory. It also incorporates the monetization of real-world assets into the regulatory framework, making it clear that related activities and the provision of intermediaries, information technology services, etc. within the country, are also at risk of illegal financial activities without specific consent. In the context of a chain-based US stock, if a domestic user uses a stable currency to access foreign stock certificates, the risk is not just that of “buying an offshore asset”, but that it may overlap with securities investments, foreign exchange usage, virtual currency transactions, money-laundering and cross-border disputes。

In addition to a few issues that require attention above, there are many issues in the chain that require attention as investors。

First is price and liquidity. The traditional American stock is open, closed, centralized, marketed, regulated and liquidated. The chain certificates can be transferred 24 hours a day, but the bottom stock market is not open 24 hours a day. How do you anchor the chain price in non-trading times? Who's in town? To what extent is price deviation acceptable? Can the mechanisms of foreclosure and arbitrage run when markets are volatile? If these issues are not made clear in advance, the user may have bought not a stable US stock opening, but rather a chain-to-trade variety with prices that appear to resemble US stock。

Stock shares are subject to a host of back-office matters such as dividends, stock-breaking, mergers, de-marketing, offer acquisitions, tax withholding, etc. Traditional issuers usually handle these tasks on behalf of users. If the U.S. stock in the chain is sufficiently regulated, it must also answer the questions: how to split it, how to adjust it, what to do with the certificates when they leave the market, who provides the tax documents, and whether the users have additional reporting obligations. Otherwise, the user would appear to have a “American stock opening”, and only when the company actually acted would it find its rights blurred。

There is also dispute resolution. The chain transfers appear clear, but the legal relationship is not necessarily clear. The issuer is in one jurisdiction, the trustee in another, and the distribution platform in a third jurisdiction, where the user may be in the Mainland. In case of problems, which national laws apply, where to sue, whether to obtain an asset certificate, and whether to pursue a trust asset, these are not part of the area browser solution。

So the chain is just the front desk, and what really determines security is the set of rules under the chain, namely, bottom-up assets, hosting arrangements, issuance of documents, user access, foreclosure mechanisms, audit disclosure and dispute resolution. Without this set, it's hard to get a real buyer to look at the big story on the stock chain。

What do the Web3 entrepreneurs care about

For entrepreneurs, the U.S. share in the chain certainly deserves attention, but it cannot be understood as “the traditional voucher dealers have been regulated, so there is an opportunity on the chain”。

This cross-border voucher settlement is the most worthy of careful reading, not just by name, but by name, but as a whole. Offshore agencies themselves are of course the subject of regulation, and domestic affiliates, collaborators, illegal intermediaries, Internet platforms, from the media, opening courses, experience-sharing, marketing diversions, trading software, customer services and money transfer support may also enter the regulatory sphere。

This is a direct reminder to the American-owned entrepreneurs of the chain: if you promote the U.S. share in the chain to domestic investors, direct the opening of accounts, teach people to take money, do back-entry, provide Chinese-language hospitality, organize community visits, help users process trade orders, or provide trade software, website operations, customer services and marketing support for offshore platforms, even if the entry pointer App is a wallet and the clearing currency is converted from the United States dollar to a stable currency, the nature of the risk will not change automatically。

THE MORE REALISTIC LOCATION FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS NOT “A NEW WAY FOR THE BULK TO BUY AMERICAN SHARES”, BUT RATHER TO THE MORE B-SIDE, INFRASTRUCTURE- AND COMPLIANCE-RELATED SERVICES。

The issuer requires a bottom-up asset hosting and asset certification, independent audit and reserve disclosure, user identification, anti-money-laundering, sanctions list screening, chain-based address risk rating, a predictor, transaction monitoring, early warning of abnormal prices, corporate action processing systems, tax reporting and user reconciliation tools. Trading platforms and wallets also require compliance distribution capabilities, such as how products are displayed in different regions, how different users make access judgements, which assets require additional risk disclosure, which operations trigger suspicious transaction monitoring and which chain addresses are not interactive。

These jobs do not sound as popular as “up-chain buying equity”, but they are closer to a business that can be run on a long-term basis。

IF AN OFFSHORE VOUCHER HOLDER, ASSET MANAGEMENT AGENCY, TRUSTEE OR FUND PLATFORM SEEKS TO EXPLORE THE LICENSING OF SECURITIES, IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY KNOW ITS OWN WALLET, SMART CONTRACT, SECURITY AUDIT, CHAIN DATA, CROSS-LINK BRIDGE, ASSET CERTIFICATION AND STABLE CURRENCY SETTLEMENT. IF THE BUSINESS TEAM PROVIDES CLEAR TECHNICAL MODULES AND DOES NOT TOUCH USER FUNDS, DOES NOT TRADE, DOES NOT MARKET TO THE DOMESTIC PUBLIC AND DOES NOT COMMIT TO PROFIT, THE COMPLIANCE SPACE WILL BE MUCH LARGER THAN A DIRECT END-OF-THE-ART C TRADING PATH。

The chain is not a panacea

Turning back to the question of whether stock in the chain is a new antidote

The answer is clear: No. Rather than being a cure, it could turn an old securities account problem into a problem of securities, foreign exchange, virtual currency, money-laundering and cross-border disputes。

But if one looks at it, will the US stock on the chain become an important entry point into the global financial asset chain? I think so。

MARKET DEMAND IS REAL. GLOBAL USERS WANT LESS FRICTION TO ACCESS UNITED STATES ASSETS, ENCRYPTED USERS WANT STABLE CURRENCY TO REMAIN BEYOND TRADING AND PAYMENTS, AND TRADITIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARE LOOKING FOR MORE EFFICIENT WAYS TO ISSUE, LIQUIDATE AND DISTRIBUTE. US SHARES AND ETFS ARE ONE OF THE MOST COMMONLY AGREED ASSETS IN THE WORLD, MAKING THEM A CHAIN INTERFACE THAT IS MORE EASILY UNDERSTOOD BY ORDINARY INVESTORS THAN CREATING A NEW CARD IN A VACUUM。

The watershed is not "up and down," but "up and for what." This route will not go far if the chain is designed to bypass identification, foreign exchange, securities licence plates and investor appropriateness. If the chain is to make the issuance, hosting, transfer, audit, settlement and wind control of a compliance asset more transparent, automated and global, it is worth long-term infrastructure。

For ordinary investors, it is of the utmost importance not to treat “stocks like stocks” as “stocks” or “chains” as “unregulated”. For entrepreneurs, the opportunity is not to “buy the United States share around the diaspora”, but rather to provide business services such as legal funds, qualified users, compliance issues, clear hosting, verifiable reserves, restricted distribution, risk disclosure, transaction monitoring, corporate action processing, taxation, etc。

Market demand does not disappear because of regulatory documents, but it does not automatically become a compliance business。

The United States stock is valuable in the chain, but it is not the new export of the old problem. The real test is whether technological innovation can reconnect with financial regulation when the financial assets of the real world enter the chain。

It can be an important stop in the chain of financial assets; it becomes the next risk site when it is used as a bypass。