Crypto Market Cools Down: How Neutrl Turns Tokenized Stocks into a New 'Yield Mine'?

Crypto yields are thinning, while stock lock-ups may bring independent and substantial new revenue streams.

Written by: @ponyo_fp, Four Pillars
Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Key Points

• Funding rates, basis, and unlocking discounts are essentially the 'taxes' of crypto speculation. Because of this, when demand for stablecoins surges, the actual yields of synthetic dollars are often compressed.
• The supply rhythm of stock lock-ups depends on the IPO schedule and insider liquidity arrangements, which have nothing to do with the crypto market cycle.
• The daily trading volume of stock perpetual contracts has skyrocketed from $84 million to $5.5 billion, giving crypto asset managers the real ability to hedge stock exposure for the first time.
• A typical locked stock trade can yield about 20.5 percentage points over a six-month holding period—of which 15 percentage points come from entry discounts and 5.5 percentage points from funding rate holding yields, independent of the stock's price movements.
• The size of the eligible locked stock pool is 4.5 times the size of the filtered crypto unlocking pool.
• Looking ahead, any market that can grow liquidity shorting tools—commodities, interest rates, or the next tokenized asset—will apply the same trading logic.

Neutrl is exploring extending its delta-neutral strategy to tokenized stocks and pre-IPO shares. Below, we break down the logic behind this, how much a representative trade can earn, why the opportunity is significant, and why the buying market is still in its early stages.

Note: Neutrl is an on-chain market-neutral synthetic dollar protocol. It issues NUSD (circulating, composable synthetic dollars) and sNUSD (yield-bearing version after staking). The core gameplay is to package OTC arbitrage, locked token discount trading, and basis/funding rate arbitrage—delta-neutral strategies that were previously only available to institutions and hedge funds—on-chain, allowing ordinary users to access relatively stable non-directional yields. It is similar to synthetic dollars like Ethena but focuses more on the structural opportunities of OTC locked token discounts and is currently exploring extending strategies to tokenized stocks and pre-IPO shares.

Structural Mismatch of Yields

Synthetic dollars inherently have structural mismatches: when the crypto market cools down, funds tend to flow into stablecoins, seeking low-volatility safe havens; however, it is precisely at that time that the yields of synthetic dollars are thinning. The reason is that funding rates, basis, and unlocking discounts essentially stem from crypto speculation activities. Until recently, there were almost no hedgable targets outside the crypto cycle, so this mismatch remained unresolved for a long time. But this year, a second time 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 contraction of 30%. As trading volume shrinks, the space supporting funding rates and basis also narrows. Delta-neutral strategies that are entirely based on crypto-native price differences often yield best in quiet markets and thinnest in bustling markets. Even changing trading targets cannot alter this fact, as these price differences almost all breathe with the same crypto cycle.

However, the supply of stock lock-ups follows a different rhythm. IPO schedules, employee unlocking windows, and shares during fund lock-up periods are gradually released according to their own calendars. With IPO schedules full, funds nearing allocation deadlines, and insiders needing liquidity as per plans set years ago—none of these are related to Bitcoin. Such discounts have existed in private secondary markets for years; the barrier has never been insufficient supply but rather a lack of hedging tools. Discounts without hedging cannot be considered yields; they are merely exposures with accompanying stories.

A market becomes truly investable only when it becomes shortable. The number of holders of tokenized stocks has grown from about 70,000 in September last year to over 670,000 in July this year. Meanwhile, the daily trading volume of stock perpetual contracts has surged from $84 million to $5.5 billion within six months. Crossing this threshold, the asset class of locked discounted shares has transformed from 'visible' to 'investable.'

This is precisely the logic behind Neutrl's focus—not layering a strategy on existing logic but seeking a revenue channel driven entirely independently of the crypto cycle.

About 20 Percentage Points of Stable Yields

The most straightforward way is to look at a representative trade that Neutrl is currently evaluating (specific targets have not been disclosed and are still under discussion). The trading desk plans to buy shares of a late-stage private company at a 15% discount to a relative reference price, locking them for about six months (corresponding to the pre-IPO and post-IPO window). This 15% is not the market average nor a fixed rate; it is merely an indicative term currently under evaluation, and the discount will vary with the length of the lock-up, transfer restrictions, and the seller's liquidity needs.

On the hedging side, shorting perpetual contracts of the same underlying stock at nominal amounts. From day one, the delta is close to zero, and profits and losses no longer depend on stock price movements but rather on whether the discount converges after the lock-up period and the yields brought by the hedging side during the holding period.

The hedging side itself will also generate yields. In the actual observation window from late May to mid-July, the annualized funding rate for stock perpetual contracts on the short side averaged 10.9%, with fluctuations ranging from about -35% to +55%. Such extreme volatility is quite common in young funding rate markets where professional funds have yet to smooth out the spreads. Based on a six-month holding period, this contribution is estimated to be about 5.5 percentage points, plus the 15 percentage points discount at entry, resulting in an overall yield of about 20.5 percentage points, with directional exposure hedged. The final result is a smooth yield line—regardless of whether the stock ultimately rises or falls, it operates around 20 percentage points above zero.

Why is the market willing to pay such high rates for shorts? Because demand is one-sided. Those buying stock perpetual contracts are looking to gain leveraged stock exposure around the clock, bypassing traditional trading hours and broker restrictions. Their numbers far exceed the professionals willing to sit on the other side. Young perpetual markets have historically provided generous returns to shorts until enough arbitrage funds flow in to compress the spreads to lower levels. The stock perpetual market is at the starting point of this curve, and its underlying pool is quite large. Excluding the largest single underlying, the eligible stock lock-up size is about $48.2 billion, approximately 4.5 times the filtered crypto unlocking pipeline; if that underlying is included, the estimated size will rise to $17.4 trillion. Spreads are most generous at the inception of the market—this is not a flaw in the argument but the argument itself.

A Trading Framework Covering All Shortable Assets

For stakers, the real change lies in independence. Revenue streams from IPO calendars and lock-up expirations will continue to pay when the crypto-native market tends to calm down—which is precisely when stablecoin holders need yields the most.

Stocks are the first market outside of crypto to grow liquidity shorting tools, but they will not be the last. Commodities follow closely, then interest rates, and then the next tokenized asset. Each newly opened perpetual market will add a layer of previously visible but unreachable spreads. Expansion itself is the underlying color of this business model. Neutrl's approach is to buy locked assets and short liquid assets; as long as both coexist, it earns the spread in between. This opportunity set will compound as the tokenization process continues.