Neutrl Explores Tokenized Stocks as a New 'Yield Farm'

Article by: ponyo_fp, Four Pillars

Compiled by AididiaoJP, Foresight News

• Funding rates, basis, and unlock discounts are essentially "taxes" on crypto speculation. This is why, when demand for stablecoins is high, the actual yield of synthetic dollars is often compressed.
• The supply rhythm of stock lock-ups depends on the IPO schedule and insider liquidity arrangements, and has no relation to the cryptocurrency market cycle.
• The daily trading volume of stock perpetual contracts has surged from $84 million to $5.5 billion, giving crypto asset managers the ability to hedge stock exposure for the first time.
• A typical locked-staking stock trade generates approximately 20.5 percentage points of return over a six-month holding period—15 percentage points from the entry discount and 5.5 percentage points from funding rate holding gains, independent of the stock's price movement.
• The eligible locked token pool size is 4.5 times the filtered amount of upcoming token unlocks.
• Looking ahead, any market that can produce liquidity short-selling instruments—commodities, interest rates, or the next asset to be tokenized—will follow the same trading logic.

Neutrl is exploring extending its delta-neutral strategy to tokenized stocks and pre-IPO shares. Below is an breakdown of the underlying logic, potential profit from a representative trade, why the opportunity is significant, and why the market for these assets remains in its early stages.

Note: Neutrl is an on-chain market-neutral synthetic dollar protocol that issues NUSD (a tradable, composable synthetic dollar) and sNUSD (its interest-bearing version after staking). Its core functionality is to bring delta-neutral strategies—such as OTC arbitrage, locked-token discount trading, and basis/funding rate arbitrage—that were previously accessible only to institutions and hedge funds, onto the blockchain, enabling retail users to earn relatively stable, non-directional returns. Similar to synthetic dollar protocols like Ethena, Neutrl places greater emphasis on structural opportunities in locked-token discount arbitrage and is currently exploring extensions into tokenized equities and pre-IPO shares.

Synthetic USD inherently suffers from a structural mismatch: when the crypto market cools, capital tends to flow most heavily into stablecoins, seeking a low-volatility safe haven; yet precisely at that time, the yields on synthetic USD shrink. This is because funding rates, basis, and unlock discounts fundamentally derive from crypto speculative activity. Until recently, there were few viable hedging instruments outside the crypto cycle, leaving this mismatch unresolved for years. But this year, a second temporal dimension has begun to emerge.

In the first half of 2026, the 30-day average trading volume of the top 30 altcoin perpetual contracts dropped from $8.4 billion to $5.9 billion, a 30% contraction. As trading volume shrank, the room for funding rates and basis spreads also narrowed. Delta-neutral strategies built entirely on crypto-native spreads tend to generate their highest returns during market lulls and their lowest during periods of high activity. Switching trading instruments cannot alter this dynamic, as these spreads largely move in sync with the same crypto cycle.

However, the supply from stock lock-ups follows a different rhythm. IPO timelines, employee vesting windows, and shares held within fund lock-up periods are released gradually according to their own schedules.上市日程排满，基金临近分配截止日，内部人按几年前定下的计划需要流动性——这些都与比特币无关。这类折扣在私人二级市场早已存在多年，障碍从来不是供给不足，而是缺乏对冲工具。没有对冲的折扣，算不上收益，只是附带故事的敞口。

A market becomes truly investable when it becomes shortable. The number of tokenized stock holders has grown from approximately 70,000 in September last year to over 670,000 this July. Meanwhile, daily trading volume for stock perpetual contracts has surged from $84 million to $5.5 billion within six months. With this step crossed, the asset class of locked discount shares has moved from merely “visible” to truly “investable.”

This is precisely the logic behind Neutrl’s focus—not adding a strategy on top of existing logic, but seeking a yield source entirely independent of the crypto cycle.

The most straightforward way is to examine a representative transaction currently under evaluation by Neutrl (the specific asset has not been disclosed and is still under discussion). The trading desk plans to purchase shares in a late-stage private company at a 15% discount to the reference price, with a lock-up period of approximately six months (corresponding to the window around the IPO). This 15% discount is not indicative of market averages or a fixed rate; it is merely an illustrative term under current evaluation and will vary based on lock-up duration, transfer restrictions, and the seller’s liquidity needs.

On the hedging side, short an equivalent notional amount of the same underlying stock's perpetual contract. From day one, delta is close to zero, so profits and losses no longer depend on stock price movements, but rather on whether the discount converges after the lock-up period ends, as well as the returns generated by the hedging side during the holding period.

The hedging side itself also generates returns. During the actual observation period from late May to mid-July, the annualized funding rate for the short side of stock perpetual contracts averaged 10.9%, with fluctuations ranging from approximately -35% to +55%. Such sharp volatility is common in younger funding rate markets where professional capital has not yet fully arbitrated the spread. Estimating a six-month holding period, this contribution adds approximately 5.5 percentage points, combined with the 15 percentage point discount at entry, resulting in a total return of about 20.5 percentage points, with directional exposure fully hedged. The final outcome is a stable return line, consistently hovering around 20 percentage points above zero, regardless of whether the underlying stock ultimately rises or falls.

Why is the market willing to pay such high rates to short sellers? Because demand is one-sided. Buyers of stock perpetual contracts are traders seeking round-the-clock leveraged exposure to stocks, circumventing traditional trading hours and broker restrictions. Their numbers far exceed those of professional capital willing to take the opposite side. Historically, the young perpetual market has offered generous returns to short sellers until sufficient arbitrage capital flows in, compressing the spread to lower levels. The stock perpetual market is just at the beginning of this curve, and its underlying pool is also substantial. Excluding the single largest underlying asset, the locked-up size of eligible stocks is approximately $48.2 billion—about 4.5 times that of the filtered crypto unlock pipeline; including this asset, the estimated size rises to $1.74 trillion. Spreads are widest at the market’s inception—this is not a flaw in the argument, but the argument itself.

For stakers, the real change lies in independence. Income streams from listing calendars and lock-up expirations continue to pay out even when the crypto-native market grows quiet—precisely when stablecoin holders need yields the most.

Stocks were the first market beyond crypto to develop liquid short-selling instruments, but they won’t be the last. Commodities followed, then interest rates, and next will be the next asset to be tokenized. Each new perpetual market adds a new layer of spread that was previously visible but inaccessible. Expansion itself is the foundational color of this business model. Neutrl’s approach is to buy and lock up the underlying asset while shorting the liquid asset, profiting from the spread between the two as long as they coexist. This opportunity set will compound alongside the tokenization process.