Wall Street Quietly Builds Tokenized Stock Infrastructure

Over the past three weeks, four seemingly unrelated news stories have revealed a larger pattern. Wall Street is quietly building the infrastructure for tokenized stocks, piece by piece.

In late August, Coinbase launched tokenized versions of US tech giants' shares on its blockchain. This was followed by the London Stock Exchange announcing plans to tokenize its top 100 shares with partner Kraken on September 1. Nasdaq made a significant investment in Kraken's parent company on September 10, committing $100 million to create 'Nasdaq Equity Tokens', digital versions of its listed stocks.

The same parent company had received an earlier investment from Deutsche Börse, the German stock exchange. This shows three major market operators, the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Börse, and Nasdaq, are all positioning themselves on the same foundational layer for tokenized stocks.