# Tokenized stock, CFD, or the real share: what is the difference?

> Three ways to get exposure to a share price without holding the share the same way. They differ in who you are exposed to, what settles, and whether anyone can check the record.

- **Kind:** Explainer
- **Checked:** 2026-07-29
- **Author:** Stocks On Chain

## Sources

- Robinhood: stock token documentation: https://docs.robinhood.com/chain/stock-tokens/
- Backed: xStocks product and legal overview: https://docs.xstocks.fi/docs/product-legal-overview

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If you have met contracts for difference before, a tokenized stock will feel
familiar. That familiarity is worth checking, because the overlap is narrower than
it looks.

## The real share

You buy the share through a broker. The broker holds it, usually in street name,
which means the company's register shows a nominee rather than your name. You get
dividends as cash, you get a vote, and the register is the record.

## A contract for difference

You own nothing. You have a contract with a provider that pays the difference
between the opening and closing price. It is a bilateral position: your counterparty
is the provider, the provider's solvency is your exposure, and the record of your
position is the provider's book.

CFDs are typically leveraged, they usually carry a financing cost for holding a
position overnight, and in a number of jurisdictions they are restricted or banned
for retail investors. That regulatory history is context for the comparison rather
than a comment on the tokens.

## A tokenized stock

The answer here depends on the issuer, because tokenized stocks are not one thing.

In the one-to-one backed structures, a real share exists. Backed, through xStocks,
states its certificates are collateralized one to one by the share it tracks, held
with a custodian. Nothing is held in a CFD, which makes that a wide gap.

In the debt-security structure, Robinhood states it issues its stock tokens as debt
securities, which is a claim on the issuer. In one respect that sits closer to the
CFD case: what stands behind your position is a company's obligation rather than a
specific share held for you.

Anybody answering "is a tokenized stock like a CFD" for the whole category is
overreaching.

## The three differences that hold across all of them

**Settlement.** A token settles on a public blockchain, all day, every day. A share
settles through market infrastructure on business days. A CFD is marked and closed
rather than settled at all.

**Transferability.** You can send a token to someone else, and you generally cannot
assign a CFD. This is a real functional difference, and it is also why passing a
shareholder vote through to token holders is hard.

**Whether anyone can check.** A CFD position lives in your provider's records. A
tokenized stock's supply, its holders, and every corporate action are on a public
ledger that needs no account to read. When Robinhood processed a distribution for
ORCL, the transaction was public within seconds and we could link it. Neither of the
other two offers that.

## What none of them changes

Not one of the three makes you a shareholder of record with your name on the
company's books. Direct registration does that, and it is a different arrangement
from all three. The [glossary](/glossary) has the definitions.

We are not telling you which of these to use, and this is not advice. "It tracks the
price" is the least informative thing you can know about any of them. What you are
exposed to, and who has to be solvent for your position to be worth what the screen
says, is the question that separates them.

Each [issuer page](/issuers) prints its own wrapper description, and
[how to buy](/how-to-buy) covers the practical routes.

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Source: https://stocksonchain.io/wiki/tokenized-stock-vs-cfd
Data read: 2026-07-29T00:00:00.000Z
Published by Gwei, Inc.
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribute to Stocks On Chain, https://stocksonchain.io.

Not a broker-dealer, exchange, or investment adviser. We do not sell securities and we hold no customer funds. Not investment advice, and not an offer or recommendation of any
asset. Nothing on this site is ranked or rated, and every ordered list states its
own sort key. This site publishes no issuer's rule on who may buy; it links to the issuer instead.
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