The New York Stock Exchange is building a platform to trade tokenised versions of US-listed equities and exchange-traded funds and settle those trades on the blockchain. The platform will allow instant settlement, 24/7 trading and stablecoin-based funding, according to a company statement on Monday.
Intercontinental Exchange Inc, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, is seeking US regulatory approval to launch the new platform some time this year.
If approved, the platform will “power a new NYSE venue that supports trading of tokenised shares fungible with traditionally issued securities as well as tokens natively issued as digital securities,” the company said.
Changpeng Zhao, former CEO of Binance, described the announcement as “bullish for crypto, and crypto exchanges.”
ICE is working with banks including Bank of New York Mellon and Citigroup to support tokenised deposits across its clearinghouses, according to the press release.
The aim is to allow clearing members to move and manage funds outside traditional banking hours, meet margin requirements, and handle funding across jurisdictions and time zones.
Sergej Kunz, co-founder of DeFi protocol 1inch, told DL News that although “24/7 trading removes another hurdle to [real-world asset] adoption by creating the opportunity for continuous liquidity,” that is not a “silver bullet” because “liquidity still has to exist at those hours.”
“Unless cross-venue and cross-chain fragmentation is addressed simultaneously, reliable liquidity will remain elusive,” Kunz said.
Tokenised stocks hit the mainstream in 2025, as companies like Robinhood and Kraken launched tokenised around-the-clock stock trading on their platforms.
“In 2026, the tokenised assets market becomes broader, deeper, and significantly more institutional,” Philipp Pieper, co-founder of tokenisation platform Swarm Markets, previously told DL News.
In a December report, Grayscale said the tokenised assets constitute “just 0.01% of global equity and bond market capitalisation.”
“By 2030, it would not be surprising to see tokenised assets grow by ~1,000x, in our view,” Grayscale said.