NYSE and Blockchain.com Team Up on Tokenized US Stocks
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Blockchain.com have signed a memorandum of understanding to bring tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to Blockchain.com users via NYSE's planned digital trading platform.
The arrangement is designed to extend NYSE's tokenized securities roadmap beyond traditional market participants and into Blockchain.com's global customer base, pending regulatory approval. The proposal also includes an exchange of market data, with NYSE affiliate ICE Data Services providing crypto market data and analytics to Blockchain.com in return for certain market data feeds from Blockchain.com back to the NYSE ecosystem.
Rid Noch, vice president of US equity market structure at TD Securities, told Cointelegraph that NYSE's planned tokenized ATS appears 'primarily like a play for retail flow.' According to Noch, the design, featuring planned 24/7 trading and request-for-quote functionality, aligns more closely with the way retail participants often engage with markets outside standard trading hours.
The Blockchain.com-NYSE memorandum sits within a broader trend of major trading platforms exploring ways to offer equity exposure using token-like structures. Tanay Ved, senior research associate at Talos, described the shift in comments shared with Cointelegraph, saying traditional markets are adopting the '24/7, programmable structure crypto pioneered.'
The agreement arrives less than a week after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced a five-year 'Innovation Exemption' for certain tokenized securities trading venues. The SEC's framework has direct consequences for which tokenized products may qualify and which may be excluded in their current form, with a key requirement that tokenized stocks must carry the same rights and privileges as their conventional share counterparts.
The distributed value of tokenized stocks reached $3.14 billion as of Wednesday, representing an increase of more than 18% over the prior 30 days. The number of holders rose nearly 72% to 3.87 million, suggesting that interest is not limited to institutional experimentation.