The New York Stock Exchange is moving further into blockchain-based market infrastructure, with President Lynn Martin saying the exchange is developing a platform for on-chain settlement of tokenized securities. The announcement comes as traditional market infrastructure firms increasingly test whether blockchain can handle parts of the stock market without sacrificing the controls investors already rely on.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) processed live production trades using tokenized securities in July, involving multiple financial institutions, ahead of its planned tokenization service launch in October. NYSE has also filed rules that would allow eligible stocks and ETFs to trade in tokenized form through the DTCC pilot.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 NYSE is building a blockchain platform for 24/7 trading and settlement of tokenized securities.
– Lynn Martin, NYSE President pic.twitter.com/ndc5FpTku0
— Crypto India (@CryptooIndia) August 10, 2026
The scale of the infrastructure behind the project is what makes NYSE’s move more consequential than another blockchain trial. Depository Trust Company (DTC), the settlement arm of DTCC, currently holds more than $114 trillion in securities, and its tokenization service is being designed to represent assets already held in that system.
The initial service is limited to highly liquid assets, including companies in the Russell 1000, major index ETFs and U.S. government securities. If those trials work at scale, tokenization could gradually move from a niche digital-asset use case into the infrastructure supporting mainstream securities.
Tokenized stocks could make markets cheaper for investors
The potential savings are one of the stronger reasons for Wall Street to pursue tokenization. A 2024 study by the Bank for International Settlements estimated that tokenization could reduce costs in areas such as trading, settlement and collateral management, particularly where several intermediaries currently handle the same transaction. The savings could become more meaningful in markets where assets are frequently used as collateral or moved between financial institutions.
The effect would reduce the amount of capital and administrative work tied up between a trade and its final settlement. That could improve how quickly collateral is reused and reduce some of the costs institutions pass through to clients.
Could tokenization blur the line between Wall Street and crypto?
The World Economic Forum estimated in 2025 that tokenized assets could reach $2 trillion by 2030 under a conservative scenario, with the market potentially reaching $4 trillion under more optimistic conditions. The estimate covers assets such as bonds, funds, loans and other financial instruments, not just stocks.
That projection matters because it puts NYSE’s move inside a much larger race to digitize traditional assets. If tokenized securities gain traction, crypto infrastructure such as blockchains, stablecoins and digital wallets could become part of conventional capital markets without investors necessarily thinking of themselves as crypto users.
Meanwhile, NYSE Arca and NYSE American have removed the long-standing 25,000-contract position and exercise limit on options tied to a group of spot Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), opening the door to larger and more flexible trades.
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