Kelly Markets

Contest markets for tokenized assets.

Tokenization solved how assets get on-chain. It did not give anyone a reason to come back the next day. We build the layer that does — competitive markets on real prices, where we hold nothing and take a fee on participation.

The thesis

Assets moved on-chain. Behaviour didn't follow.

$9B of tokenized equities traded in the first eight months of 2026, up roughly 800% from January. Almost all of it is buy-and-hold. The instruments are new; what people do with them is not.

01

We never hold the asset

Positions are notional. No custody, no margin, no balance-sheet risk, and nothing to lose in a hack. It is also what keeps the regulatory surface small.

02

Revenue from participation

We are paid when people play, not on spread, float or assets under management. Marginal cost per additional participant is effectively zero.

03

One engine, many feeds

The settlement engine takes a price tape and a set of positions. It does not care whether those prices are equities, commodities or something else entirely.

Where we are

Phase one is built and running.

Not a roadmap slide. Contracts are deployed, the settlement engine scores real weeks from a recorded price tape, and a full season has been played end to end.

3

Smart contracts live. No upgrade path, no owner withdrawal.

234

Automated tests, green on every change.

194

Instruments priced every fifteen minutes to an append-only tape.

$180k

Revenue from this team's previous project in the same category.

The portfolio

Five products. One chassis.

Each takes a different route to the same place: fee revenue from activity on tokenized assets. Each inherits the last one's contracts, audits and users.

Phase 01

Competitive equity markets

A weekly contest on tokenized shares. Participants run notional books on live prices and are eliminated on performance until a final field remains.

Live · testnet
Phase 02

Derivatives contests

The same seats, the same settlement engine, a second and third instrument class. Sold as recurring access rather than a new audience.

In model
Phase 03

Event markets

Automated participation in a market that traded $111B in a single quarter and grew four figures year on year.

Early
Phase 04

Issuance

Bringing assets on-chain rather than only building on top of them. $32.2B of real-world assets are already there; the distribution layer is immature.

Early
Phase 05

Illiquid asset classes

The least liquid things people own, meeting the most liquid settlement rail that has ever existed. Fractional, on-chain, continuously priced.

Concept

Full breakdown of each phase →

Why now

The rails shipped eight weeks ago.

New infrastructure

A chain purpose-built to hold tokenized equities went live on 30 April 2026 with 189 instruments. Nothing competitive has been built on it.

Behaviour is unsolved

55% of volume trades outside US market hours. The market never closes, and there is nothing to do in those hours except hold.

Incumbents are conflicted

A brokerage cannot run a contest on its own order flow without becoming something it is not licensed to be. That conflict does not expire.