Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante wants to expand tokenized equities to 10,000 symbols. The plan connects brokerage accounts with DeFi in both directions, while its EWY product offers a concrete example of the model already in use.
Backpack has set its sights on bringing 10,000 equity symbols to the Solana network. CEO Armani Ferrante outlined the ambition in a Raoul Pal interview published September 24, describing a single connection between brokerage holdings and DeFi applications. A clip shared by Solana on September 26 brought the plan back into focus.
The announcement does not mean 10,000 products have opened for trading. Ferrante’s starting point was his estimate that roughly 100–200 symbols exist across different blockchains. That figure describes his view of the wider market, rather than an inventory of stock tokens already offered by Backpack.
“We want to bring the entire stock market to Solana.”
From a brokerage holding to a wallet token
Backpack’s EWY token announcement on September 26 shows how the existing model works. The underlying asset is a share of the US-listed iShares MSCI South Korea ETF. According to the company, each token can be redeemed one-for-one for an ETF share through Backpack Securities, while the token can trade throughout the week.
The conversion runs both ways: withdrawing the relevant holding from Backpack Exchange sends a token to a Solana wallet, while depositing it back converts it into an ETF holding in the brokerage account. Backpack Securities issues the token. The iShares name on the underlying fund does not make BlackRock the issuer of the blockchain token.
In its June introduction of Backpack Securities, the company described a brokerage structure that provides rights to securities held through a custody chain. Those rights matter in real-world asset tokenization: seeing a token in a wallet does not establish that every product grants the same rights over its underlying asset.
A token’s name does not explain all its legal rights. A January 28 statement by SEC divisions distinguishes an entitlement linked to securities in custody from a synthetic instrument that tracks price exposure. It discusses the general structures; it is not a product approval for Backpack.
Liquidity is the test beyond the 10,000-symbol target
Ferrante says building deep onchain liquidity pools for every asset would require substantial capital. For less frequently traded shares, he points instead to intermediaries connecting blockchain trading with liquidity already available in traditional capital markets.
The interview on Raoul Pal’s channel turns to Backpack’s plan at 40:22 and the liquidity question at 44:28:
Backpack has not disclosed a timetable for reaching 10,000 tokenized products or said which products would lead the expansion. EWY illustrates the conversion model already offered; it does not demonstrate equivalent market depth for every new token.
