Wall Street’s biggest exchanges are embracing digital assets in a bid to put the $126 trillion stock market on the blockchain, but they’re not doing it alone. Rather, they rely on cryptocurrency exchanges to get there.
Last week, Nasdaq, two of the world’s most powerful exchange operators, and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, partnered with a digital asset exchange to integrate stocks and blockchain through tokenization.
Nasdaq is developing a framework that will allow listed companies to issue blockchain-based versions of their shares while maintaining traditional ownership and governance. To distribute these tokenized stocks globally, the exchange is working with Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. The service could launch as early as the first half of 2027.
Meanwhile, a few days ago, ICE announced a strategic investment in cryptocurrency exchange OKX at a valuation of $25 billion. The deal includes plans to launch new tokenized stocks and crypto futures, which will allow the exchange operator to take advantage of OKX’s 120 million user base.
“All” exchange
The spate of deals suggests big changes are coming in how the market will work in the future.
For decades, stocks, bonds, and funds were traded in separate systems with limited trading hours. Blockchain technology promises an integrated, always-on marketplace. The industry believes that eventually all financial assets can be settled in the form of tokens.
Antoine Scalia, founder and CEO of crypto accounting and compliance platform Cryptio, said the development signals a broader shift to what he calls “exchanges for all,” or markets where all asset classes are traded on the same infrastructure.
“For a very long time, the only people pushing the narrative of the convergence of traditional finance and crypto were the crypto players,” Scalia said. “You can see the major exchanges in action right now.”
“This is a recognition that eventually all assets will end up on blockchain rails,” he says.
This change has been accelerated by the January SEC Staff Statement on Tokenized Securities, which finally clarified that tokenized stocks have the same legal significance as “paper” stocks. This would give Wall Street incumbents legal protection to enter the tokenized stock trading market.
“Frenemy”
But the key question, Scalia added, is which platform will dominate the future market: traditional exchanges like Nasdaq or crypto-native exchanges like Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken.
However, that does not mean that the two are pure rivals. Often they need each other.
While traditional exchanges seek access to crypto-native traders, crypto platforms want the distribution and reliability that established financial infrastructure provides, Scalia said.
“Distribution works both ways,” he says. “Traditional exchanges want exposure to the crypto trading population, and there is significant demand from crypto users to trade other types of assets. At the same time, crypto-native companies are benefiting from the reach of these traditional players to bring more people into the crypto market.”
The result is an unusual “frenemy”-like relationship between potential competitors. “This is a very interesting dynamic with frictions and complementarities,” Scalia said. “And it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.”
Why tokenized stocks matter
Tokenized stocks (currently valued at $1 billion) represent only a small portion of the global stock market, but the potential is huge as assets of all types increasingly move towards non-stop, 24-hour trading.
A joint report by Boston Consulting Group and Ripple predicts that tokenized assets could grow 53% annually and reach $18.9 trillion across all asset classes by 2033 in a base case.
Tokenized asset market prediction (BCG/Ripple)
The market for tokenized stocks showed even faster growth. The market value has tripled since mid-2025 as Kraken, Ondo Finance, Robinhood, and many other exchanges and issuers rolled out token versions of their stocks, according to data from RWA.xyz.
The biggest benefit of putting traditional stocks on a blockchain is continuous price discovery, says Yuki Momoga, founder of tokenization startup Tenbin Labs. Unlike today’s traditional stock markets, which operate with fixed trading hours, blockchain-based assets never sleep and can be traded around the clock. This could free up more capital, increase liquidity, and reduce market volatility.
Yuminaga added that tokenizing stocks will enable more efficient lending and borrowing through decentralized finance (DeFi). He said tokenized shares can be used as collateral in loan markets, improving capital efficiency and enabling new financing opportunities.
If giants like Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange get into the stock tokenization game, it could also solve one of today’s biggest problems: liquidity.
“Tokenized stocks struggle with liquidity due to the separation of traditional and on-chain markets,” Yuminaga said. “If Nasdaq can tie these two liquidity pools together, that could change the equation.”
