Here is why Nasdaq and owner of NYSE are putting the $126 trillion equity market on blockchain

The contention for the "everything exchange" makes Wall Street operators and crypto exchanges rivals and partners astatine the aforesaid time.

Mar 15, 2026, 4:00 p.m.

Wall Street’s biggest exchanges are embracing integer assets by aiming to enactment the $126 trillion equity marketplace connected blockchains — but they are not going astatine it alone; rather, they are relying connected crypto exchanges to get there.

Over the past week, 2 of the world’s astir almighty speech operators — Nasdaq and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the genitor institution of the New York Stock Exchange — teamed up with integer plus exchanges to merge equities with blockchains done tokenization.

Nasdaq is developing a model that would let publically listed companies to contented blockchain-based versions of their shares portion preserving accepted ownership rights and governance. To administer those tokenized stocks globally, the speech is moving with Payward, the genitor institution of crypto speech Kraken. The offering could spell unrecorded arsenic soon arsenic the archetypal fractional of 2027.

Meanwhile, conscionable days earlier, ICE revealed a strategical concern successful crypto speech OKX astatine a $25 cardinal valuation. That woody includes plans to motorboat caller tokenized stocks and crypto futures, allowing the speech relation to pat into OKX's 120 cardinal idiosyncratic base.

The "everything" exchange

The flurry of deals points to a bigger translation successful however markets mightiness relation successful the future.

For decades, stocks, bonds and funds traded connected abstracted systems with constricted trading hours. Blockchain exertion promises a unified, always-on marketplace — 1 that successful the manufacture judge could yet big the colony of each fiscal assets successful the forms of tokens.

Antoine Scalia, laminitis and CEO of crypto accounting and compliance level Cryptio, said the developments constituent to a broader displacement toward what helium calls the "everything exchange" – a marketplace wherever each plus classes commercialized connected the aforesaid infrastructure.

"For a precise agelong time, it was conscionable crypto radical pushing the communicative that accepted concern and crypto would merge," Scalia said. "Now we spot the large exchanges moving."

"That’s a realization that yet each assets volition settee connected blockchain rails,” helium said.

This displacement is being accelerated by a January SEC Staff Statement on Tokenized Securities, which yet clarified that tokenized equities transportation the aforesaid ineligible value arsenic their "paper" counterparts. That gives Wall Street incumbents the ineligible screen to participate the marketplace for tokenized equity trading.

'Frenemy'

However, the cardinal question, Scalia added, is which platforms volition predominate that aboriginal market: accepted exchanges similar Nasdaq oregon crypto-native venues specified arsenic Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken.

But that doesn’t mean the 2 sides are purely rivals. In galore cases, they request each other.

Traditional exchanges are looking for entree to crypto-native traders, portion crypto platforms privation the organisation and credibility that established fiscal infrastructure provides, Scalia said.

"Distribution works some ways," helium said. "Traditional exchanges privation vulnerability to the crypto trading population, and there’s immense request from crypto users to commercialized different types of assets. At the aforesaid time, crypto-native firms payment from the scope of these accepted players to bring much radical into crypto markets."

The effect is an unusual, "frenemy"-like narration betwixt imaginable competitors. "It’s a precise absorbing dynamic with frictions and complementarity," Scalia said. "And it volition beryllium absorbing to spot however it plays out."

Why tokenized stocks matter

Tokenized equities – presently $1 cardinal – are lone a fraction of the planetary equity market, but the imaginable is monolithic arsenic each kinds of assets are progressively determination towards non-stop, around-the-clock trading.

A associated study by Boston Consulting Group and Ripple forecasted that tokenized assets could turn 53% a year, reaching $18.9 trillion crossed each plus classes by 2033 arsenic their basal case.

Tokenized plus marketplace projection (BCG/Ripple)

The marketplace for tokenized stocks showcased adjacent faster growth. The marketplace worth has tripled since mid-2025, RWA.xyz data shows, arsenic Kraken, Ondo Finance, Robinhood and a slew of different exchanges and issuers rolled retired token versions of equities.

The biggest vantage of putting accepted equities connected blockchains is continuous terms discovery, said Yuki Yuminaga, laminitis of tokenization startup Tenbin Labs. Unlike accepted banal markets today, which run connected fixed trading hours, blockchain-based assets ne'er slumber and tin commercialized astir the clock. This volition apt unlock much capital, amended liquidity and trim marketplace volatility.

Tokenizing stocks tin besides unlock much businesslike lending and borrowing done decentralized concern (DeFi), Yuminaga added. Tokenized shares could beryllium utilized arsenic collateral successful lending markets, expanding superior ratio and enabling caller financing opportunities, helium said.

Giants similar Nasdaq and NYSE entering the tokenized stocks crippled could besides lick 1 of the biggest existent symptom points: liquidity.

"Tokenized equities person struggled with liquidity due to the fact that accepted markets and onchain markets are separate," Yuminaga said. "If Nasdaq connects those 2 pools of liquidity, that could alteration the equation."

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