Jesse Pollak has a forecast for the next big crypto wave, and it doesn’t start with a new memecoin.
Speaking at Token2049 in Singapore on October 7, 2026, the creator and head of Coinbase’s Base network said the coming tokenization supercycle will center on two things: tokenized equities and non-dollar stablecoins.
His reasoning is simple. Countries are going to keep using their own currencies, so the on-chain economy will need money that matches.
What Pollak actually said
Pollak framed the supercycle around two parallel tracks. On one side sit local-currency stablecoins, which he sees handling everyday payments and transactions in people’s home currencies.
On the other side sit tokenized US equities. These are digital tokens that track real shares of public companies and can trade on a blockchain.
This isn’t just a keynote thought experiment. Base already offers tokenized US stocks to its users, which gives Pollak’s prediction some skin in the game.
The product behind the prediction
In August 2026, Coinbase introduced 1:1-backed tokenized equities on Base. The initial lineup included tickers for Nvidia, Meta, Apple, and Google.
The “1:1-backed” label matters. It means each token is meant to correspond to an actual underlying share, rather than being a synthetic bet on its price.
These tokens can trade 24/7. Traditional stock markets keep banker’s hours and take weekends off. Blockchains, famously, do not sleep.
Base handles corporate actions with on-chain multipliers and Chainlink oracles instead of physically shuffling shares around. An oracle is a service that feeds real-world data onto a blockchain. Here, it tells the token contract when something like a stock split has happened.
Rather than mailing everyone new shares after a split, the system updates a number that tells the token how much underlying stock it now represents.
As of early October 2026, daily spot trading volume for tokenized equities on Base reportedly exceeded $100 million, with market share described as increasing.
Borrowing against your stocks, on-chain
Pollak also pointed to lending as a next step. The idea is portfolio-backed borrowing: users would put up their tokenized equity holdings as collateral and borrow stablecoins against them.
The estimated loan-to-value ratio Pollak is targeting for this is 30-40%. In plain terms, someone holding a portfolio would be able to borrow roughly a third of its value, give or take, in stablecoins.
A pivot for Base
Base is Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer-2 network. A Layer-2 is a separate blockchain that runs on top of Ethereum to make transactions faster and cheaper while still leaning on Ethereum for security.
Pollak described the push into tokenized assets as a pivot. Base was originally focused on consumer apps and social features. Now it is moving toward financial infrastructure.
The move also puts Base in more direct competition with other players chasing tokenized assets. Robinhood and Kraken are both active in the space.
What this means
For investors, the most concrete takeaway is that tokenized equities are moving from pilot to product. A reported $100 million-plus in daily spot volume shows demand exists beyond a handful of curious early adopters.
The 1:1 backing model is likely to be the deciding factor for larger players. Institutions tend to care less about 24/7 trading and more about whether the token actually maps to a real share they could defend to an auditor.
There are open questions. Oracles introduce a dependency on external data, so the reliability of systems like Chainlink becomes part of the trust model for these products. Lending against volatile equities also carries liquidation risk, which is presumably why the targeted loan-to-value range is modest.
