Alpaca’s Instant Tokenization Network clears 94% of tokenized US equities as infrastructure play grows

If you want to turn a stock into a token in 2026, there’s a very good chance Alpaca is involved. The US broker-dealer now clears or custodizes roughly 94% of all tokenized US equities, managing more than $1.5B in underlying stocks.

Alpaca’s Instant Tokenization Network, which the company calls ITN, has quietly become the plumbing behind most institutional efforts to bring traditional equities onto blockchain rails.

How the ITN actually works

The core proposition is deceptively simple. Approved institutions hold shares in Alpaca brokerage accounts. When they want tokenized versions of those equities, ITN lets them mint tokens directly from those holdings, no additional stock settlement required.

Traditional tokenization workflows force institutions to sell shares, move the proceeds into stablecoins or cash, and then use that to mint tokens. ITN skips the entire middle step through in-kind minting and redemption. That eliminates settlement delays, reduces friction, and critically, avoids taxable events that cash conversions can trigger.

The system runs around the clock via a single API. That means institutions can create or destroy tokenized equity positions outside regular market hours.

The Ondo integration and institutional adoption

Ondo Finance plugged into Alpaca’s ITN on September 21, 2026, giving institutions the ability to mint or redeem Ondo Stocks tokens for US stocks and ETFs in-kind. The integration works on both Ethereum and BNB Chain.

Before this integration, converting between traditional equities and tokenized versions required multiple intermediaries and settlement cycles that could stretch for days. Now, an institution with shares sitting in an Alpaca account can move to tokenized form almost instantly.

Following the money

Alpaca raised $150M in a Series D round in January 2026, pushing the company’s valuation to $1.15B. That unicorn status was followed by an additional $135M equity raise in July, which combined with debt financing brought the company’s total capital influx to $435M.

The July capital raise coincided with a partnership with Broadridge, announced on July 20, 2026, which integrates governance and proxy voting features across both traditional and tokenized equities. By partnering with Broadridge, Alpaca is addressing the fact that tokenized equity holders have historically been locked out of shareholder governance.

Why the infrastructure layer matters most

AlpacaDB Inc. is a FINRA-regulated broker-dealer, which means the shares underlying every token sit within a compliance framework that institutional investors actually trust.

The ITN launched on October 2, 2025, at TOKEN2049 in Singapore. In less than a year, it has grown from a concept demo to the backbone of most tokenized US equity activity.