Nasdaq winning SEC approval to move stocks onchain shows how Wall Street is taking charge of crypto tech

Nasdaq's operation the SEC approved opens doorway to bring blockchain benefits to equities, portion preserving the same-old intermediaries and marketplace structure, manufacture insiders say.

Mar 20, 2026, 5:04 p.m.

The SEC’s fresh approval of Nasdaq’s tokenized securities model marks a cardinal turning constituent for however stocks could commercialized successful the future: it brings blockchain into the halfway of U.S. equity markets, but connected Wall Street’s terms.

The regulatory greenish airy allows Nasdaq to trial a strategy wherever definite stocks and ETFs tin beryllium issued and settled arsenic blockchain-based tokens portion trading alongside accepted shares. In practice, investors could clasp tokenized versions of securities successful integer wallets, with clearing and colony handled by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

However, the effort isn't a sweeping overhaul of marketplace operations; rather, it focuses connected post-trade plumbing.

DTCC enforcement Brian Steele said the steadfast aims to physique "safe, unafraid tokenization services to beforehand a much resilient, inclusive, cost-effective and businesslike fiscal system," portion moving with exchanges and marketplace participants to standard adoption.

Read more: Here is wherefore Nasdaq and proprietor of NYSE are putting the $126 trillion equity marketplace connected blockchain

'Biggest beneficiaries'

One of the main reasons Wall Street giants are moving to tokenizing stocks is that they tin connection traders around-the-clock trading.

Traditional equity markets run wrong fixed trading hours and trust connected multi-day colony cycles. Creating tokens of stocks connected blockchain rails brings the anticipation of near-instant colony and, eventually, around-the-clock trading.

Val Gui, wide manager astatine Kraken’s tokenized banal level xStocks, called the support "a wide awesome the $126 trillion equity marketplace volition beryllium shifting onto blockchain rails," pointing to a aboriginal wherever banal ownership becomes "24/7 and global."

"This builds connected the SEC’s enactment with the DTC, and it’s an encouraging one," said Ian De Bode, president of tokenization steadfast Ondo. "Progress toward 24/7 markets, adjacent successful permissioned form, is positive."

"The biggest beneficiaries volition beryllium planetary investors… who person agelong lacked seamless, around-the-clock entree to U.S. equities," helium added.

For that connection, Nasdaq said it is tapping crypto speech Kraken to administer banal tokens globally.

Wall Street keeps control

Still, Nasdaq’s exemplary does not regenerate the aged fiscal system. It lone extends it to onchain securities.

Tokenized shares volition inactive commercialized done brokers and settee via DTCC, with blockchain utilized chiefly arsenic an alternate grounds of ownership.

"Nasdaq is efficaciously ring-fencing the benefits of blockchain wrong the existing TradFi [traditional finance] stack," said Maylea Ma, lawman wide counsel astatine 1inch, a decentralized speech (DEX) aggregator.

Investors whitethorn spot faster colony oregon much flexible ownership features, she said, but lone wrong a permissioned strategy that inactive relies connected intermediaries.

"If tokenized equities cannot link to broader onchain liquidity and non-custodial execution, the ratio gains volition beryllium incremental alternatively than transformational," Ma said.

'Still a measurement behind'

While the determination is simply a measurement towards the aboriginal of trading, U.S. is inactive lagging down different jurisdictions.

Jesse Knutson, caput of operations astatine Bitfinex Securities, who has worked connected tokenized issuances successful frontier markets similar Kazakhstan and El Salvador, said the support reflects regulatory advancement but besides highlights however acold U.S. efforts inactive person to go.

"The flexibility of tokenization is what markets truly want" offering 24/7 trading, fractionalization, real-time colony and the quality to self-custody, helium said.

In places similar Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and El Salvador, regulators person already allowed tokenized securities to beryllium issued and traded with less bequest constraints, including much nonstop capitalist entree and blockchain-native settlement. Other hubs specified arsenic Switzerland and the UAE besides moved faster to found frameworks for integer plus issuance and trading, giving firms country to experiment.

"It’s an encouraging move… but it’s inactive a measurement down much progressive jurisdictions," Knutson said.

To beryllium fair, U.S. regulators oversee the world’s largest and astir ascendant equity marketplace — worthy astir $62 trillion — which leaves little inducement and flexibility to overhaul the existing systems successful favour of newer blockchain-based models. Any changes indispensable acceptable wrong a profoundly entrenched marketplace operation built astir capitalist protection, intermediaries and centralized clearing.

But for now, the SEC's determination suggests a wide direction: Tokenization is coming to nationalist markets, and it volition beryllium shaped, astatine slightest initially, by the aforesaid institutions and rules that specify them today.

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