Bitget and digital asset research firm Block Scholes published a study on October 7–8, 2026, examining the next phase of tokenized markets: using tokenized equities as active collateral inside a crypto exchange account. The report focuses on Bitget’s Cross-Asset Unified Account, a product launched in July 2026 that folds tokenized U.S. stocks into the same margin framework as crypto derivatives.
Bitget now serves more than 125 million users and describes itself as a Universal Exchange, or UEX. Through one account, traders can access more than 2 million crypto assets as well as tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, precious metals and forex. The Cross-Asset Unified Account includes more than 370 eligible assets, among them 125 tokenized U.S. stocks known as rStocks. Supported names include Apple (rAAPL), Amazon (rAMZN), Google (rGOOGL), Nvidia (rNVDA) and the Nasdaq-100 ETF (rQQQ).
The account evolved across three generations. Generation 1 kept spot, margin and futures in separate wallets with each position margined independently. Generation 2 merged crypto assets into one shared margin pool. Generation 3, the Cross-Asset UTA, adds tokenized stocks and other real-world assets to the same collateral pool.
To quantify the capital-efficiency effect, Block Scholes modeled a hypothetical $1 million institutional portfolio with a long crypto bias and an AI-chip versus Nasdaq-100 relative-value sleeve. The book held $175,000 in spot tokenized chip stocks—Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, TSMC and Micron rStocks—plus a $410,000 long Bitcoin perpetual at 5x leverage, a $300,000 long Ethereum perpetual at 5x, and a $115,000 short Nasdaq-100 ETF perpetual at 5x. In August 2026 the portfolio returned 17% on notional, driven mostly by BTC and ETH gains.
Under the separate-account structure, the trader would need $175,000 for the stocks and about $165,000 in USDT margin for the perpetuals. Generation 2 required the same $165,000 but shared across crypto positions. Under Generation 3, the $175,000 of chip stocks counts toward collateral at a 95% discount rate, contributing about $166,000. That fully covers the $165,000 margin requirement, so the trader posts no additional USDT. The study concludes this is about $165,000 less committed capital, equal to 16.5% of notional and roughly half the capital otherwise required.
The discount rate is the share of an asset’s market value that the account counts as collateral. Stablecoins USDT and USDC are the benchmark at 100%. BTC, ETH and BGUSD receive a 98% rate, while other stablecoins such as USDe and PYUSD receive 95%. Large-cap altcoins and large U.S. stocks also receive 95%, mid-cap altcoins such as UNI and AAVE get 90%, and smaller tokens like OP and POL get 80%. Position size also matters: larger holdings receive lower rates to account for liquidity impact. For BTC and ETH, the rate remains 98% below $1 million and steps down gradually to 50% between $80 million and $100 million. A large-cap tokenized stock such as rNVDA holds 95% up to about $500,000, while more volatile names like rMSTR decline faster.
The report also stress-tested the portfolio. The modeled account opened with adjusted equity of about $166,000, well above the roughly $8,150 maintenance margin at which liquidation would begin. If chip stocks alone fell 10% or 20%, adjusted equity would drop to around $150,000 or $133,000. If chip stocks, BTC, ETH and the Nasdaq-100 short fell together, adjusted equity would fall to about $90,000 at a 10% decline and roughly $14,000 at a 20% decline. Liquidation would be reached after a correlated decline of about 21%. Adding roughly $30,000 of extra USDT would extend that threshold to about 25%, while holding an equivalent $166,000 in USDT instead of stock collateral would push liquidation to about 27%.
Correlation and volatility are central to the risk picture. Since January 2022, the 60-day correlation between Bitcoin and the Nasdaq-100 ETF has averaged +0.41 and ranged from -0.13 to +0.75. It fell to an average of +0.07 between November 2023 and May 2024, then rose again and averaged +0.53 during the April–June 2025 tariff shock. Bitcoin’s annualized volatility averaged 51% over the period, versus 22% for the Nasdaq-100. From June 1 to August 25, 2026, the modeled chip basket was even more volatile at 56%, while BTC was at 40% and the Nasdaq-100 ETF at 26%. Block Scholes maps collateral on a grid of correlation and volatility: low-volatility, negatively correlated collateral carries the lowest relative liquidation risk, while high-volatility, positively correlated collateral carries the highest.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said: “Tokenization has moved beyond the question of access. Moving assets onchain is only the first step. The bigger question is how efficiently that capital can work once it is there.” Chen added that the research shows what becomes possible when different asset classes contribute to the same pool of capital rather than sitting in separate accounts.
Under the unified account, a single rStock holding can provide equity exposure, dividend payments in USDT through issuer Reality, collateral for futures and other positions, and a basis for stablecoin borrowing. Collateral used for margin and borrowing is not double-counted, however. The study concludes that the choice of collateral matters as much as its amount, because correlation and volatility determine how quickly the margin buffer erodes during market stress.
