Milk Road · Nov 9, 2026 · 45m · 38m saved
With Armani Ferrante, Co-Founder and CEO of Backpack
A $50 million to $100 million company that Backpack listed on Solana out-traded NASDAQ in its first 24 hours. Armani Ferrante, co-founder and CEO of Backpack, told John Gillan on Milk Road that the volume comes from one feature: tokens that redeem into real shares. Most tokenized-stock products only track a price; Backpack's let a user move the stock between a crypto wallet and a brokerage account.
"This is 50 to $100 million market cap company that we listed on Solana, and in the first 24 hours it does more volume than NASDAQ does in a day." — Armani Ferrante
Armani runs the platform that handled about 90% of the $657 million in tokenized stocks traded on Solana in one day last week.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 45 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 9 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
About 90% of $657M in tokenized-stock trading on Solana in one day went through Backpack
Backpack's stocks redeem both ways into an Interactive Brokers account, which Armani credits for its liquidity
A $50M–$100M company out-traded NASDAQ in its first 24 hours on Backpack
Armani sees Backpack as a neo brokerage that other apps plug into for access to Wall Street
Armani is not worried about Wall Street incumbents, and does not see tokenization as a zero-sum game
Perpetual futures complement tokenized spot stocks rather than compete with them
Armani puts the addressable market at "the entire economy", with options, bonds and real estate to follow stocks
1. $657M in a Day on Solana
John Gillan, who hosts Milk Road, opened with the numbers behind the episode. Solana carried $657 million in tokenized-stock trading the previous Monday, and Backpack handled most of it.
Backpack handled about 90% of a $657M day in tokenized stocks on Solana
"Last Monday, $657 million worth of tokenized stocks traded on Solana and about 90% of that was on Backpack." — John Gillan
John added that, according to Fidelity, Solana had at one point out-traded the New York Stock Exchange, while SOL's own price sat near $85. Armani described the moment as a token super cycle: a decade of speculative crypto cycles in altcoins, NFTs and memecoins built the financial rails now being used to bring the real economy on-chain.
"We are on the precipice of probably the most important change to the industry... bringing the entire real world economy on chain." — Armani Ferrante
Backpack lists about 88 symbols on Solana today and plans to grow to thousands.
