A trader holding USDT can now move from Bitcoin into gold, oil or a product linked to SpaceX without opening a brokerage account. The balance, interface and trading hours may look familiar. What the trader owns can change with every click.

That difference matters as major centralized exchanges like MEXC expand beyond crypto. The exchange now offers commodities, equity futures, pre-IPO products, and access to US-listed shares. Its strategy reflects a wider race among exchanges and fintech apps to become the place where users trade almost anything.

The market is growing quickly. Tokenized stocks reached a record market value of about $2.3 billion in July, up from $329 million a year earlier.

Kraken…