Global Listing and 24-Hour Stock Trading? Analyzing the NYSE’s On-Chain “Open Strategy”
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Global Listing and 24-Hour Stock Trading? Analyzing the NYSE’s On-Chain “Open Strategy”
Comprehensively and systematically outline the current development progress of U.S. equity tokenization.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy: TechFlow
On February 3, Ondo Finance—a tokenized real-world assets (RWA) platform—publicly launched its “Ondo Global Listing” service, claiming it can bring U.S. equities on-chain “nearly in real time” simultaneously with their IPO listing, enabling open trading across major blockchains on the first day of listing. This move not only aims to eliminate the “IPO time lag” between Wall Street and the crypto world but also signals Ondo’s ambition to evolve from an intermediary into a “digital underwriter,” backed by over $2.5 billion in assets under management (AUM) and $9 billion in cumulative trading volume.
Yet no matter how bold or transformative Ondo’s initiative may be, it remains a “downstream breakthrough” launched by a crypto-native protocol. The true ceiling of the U.S. equity tokenization wave is still set by traditional infrastructure giants. On January 19, 2026, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) officially announced it is developing a platform for tokenized securities trading and on-chain settlement—and plans to seek necessary regulatory approvals for the platform.
This announcement triggered significant discussion across both traditional finance and the crypto industry. Yet most observers boiled it down to a single sentence: “The NYSE is tokenizing U.S. equities.” While technically accurate, this interpretation falls far short. Reducing the initiative to mere “stock-on-chain” or “traditional finance moving toward Web3” misses the essence entirely: the NYSE’s move represents a carefully considered institutional revolution.
TechFlow hopes to begin with this news item itself and comprehensively map the current state of U.S. equity tokenization. This article—the first in a series—focuses specifically on what this landmark announcement says, and what impact it will have on the broader U.S. traditional financial industry.
I. What Does the NYSE Announcement Actually Say?
According to the NYSE’s official announcement, its initiative goes far beyond simply affixing a “token” label to stocks. Its core is not any specific product, but rather a full-chain deconstruction and re-engineering of the entire securities trading ecosystem. We identify four pivotal transformations:
(1) 24/7 Trading
24/7 trading is a long-standing differentiator between crypto markets and traditional financial markets. But the NYSE’s vision for 24/7 trading is not merely about extending trading hours—it explicitly centers on the “post-trade infrastructure.” The exchange aims to build a new digital platform that integrates its existing matching engine (Pillar) with a blockchain-based post-trade system, enabling continuous operation across the full chain of “trading, settlement, and custody.” In simple terms, the NYSE seeks to create new technological and institutional arrangements so that the settlement system itself can operate continuously.
Traditional securities markets have long adhered to fixed trading hours primarily because processes such as settlement and fund transfers heavily depend on banking business hours and clearing windows. By leveraging on-chain or tokenized funding tools to bridge “funding gaps during non-business hours,” the NYSE aims to activate currently idle periods—nights and weekends.
Whether 24/7 trading benefits financial markets and retail investors remains debatable and warrants careful consideration, per TechFlow. For U.S. equities themselves, however, the net effect is clearly positive. As the world’s most central asset pool, U.S. equities cannot further evolve into a truly global liquidity foundation unless their trading hours become more globally aligned.
(2) Instant Settlement via Stablecoins
As just noted, the NYSE intends to extend trading hours using new “on-chain or tokenized funding tools.” Among these, settlement tools are especially critical.
The NYSE’s official press release uses the terms “instant settlement” and “stablecoin-based funding,” and explicitly states that the platform will employ a “blockchain-based post-trade system” to achieve on-chain settlement. Two key points deserve emphasis:
- First, the NYSE is not proposing the basic idea of “buying stocks with stablecoins.” Rather, it envisions stablecoins as tools for settlement and margin management.
- Second, “instant settlement” means shifting from the traditional T+1 settlement cycle to near real-time execution.
The most immediate effect is eliminating various risks arising from time lags between trade execution and settlement. Notably, the NYSE mentioned collaborating with BNY Mellon and Citibank to advance “tokenized deposits”—enabling clearing members to transfer and manage funds, meet margin requirements, and address cross-time-zone and cross-jurisdictional funding needs—even outside banks’ operating hours.
(3) Fractional Share Trading
Having covered innovations in trading infrastructure, let’s now turn to the benefit likely most impactful for non-U.S. investors.
The narrative around U.S. equity tokenization has evolved significantly, and TechFlow has analyzed the pros and cons of fractional shares numerous times. Yet this NYSE announcement marks the first official recognition of “fractional share trading” as a formal concept. The announcement states the platform aims to shift the unit of trading—from the traditional “1 share” to units closer to “allocation by dollar amount.” For example, one share of Tesla currently trades at ~$400, placing it out of reach for many retail investors—but what if, on the new platform, investors could buy 0.025 shares of Tesla for just $10? That sounds highly appealing.
Of course, delighting less-capitalized retail investors is certainly not the NYSE’s primary objective. Its goal is to redefine the minimum tradable unit of securities—to align it precisely with the granularity required for tokenization and on-chain settlement.
The implications are multifaceted. First, market-making and liquidity provision will undergo profound change: liquidity will no longer be anchored solely to depth in whole-share lots, but instead rebuilt around alternative metrics—such as dollar value. Second, when the platform permits “tokenized shares and traditionally issued securities to serve as mutual substitutes,” fractional shares enable smoother clearing, exchange, and interoperability of the same underlying asset across disparate systems. This may sound abstract, but it’s akin to breaking large bills into smaller denominations—and standardizing the currency so it can be spent and exchanged seamlessly across different stores.
Within this structural redesign, fractional trading itself acquires renewed significance. Historically viewed as a “convenience feature” for retail investors, fractional shares here function more like a foundational prerequisite for financial engineering. Only when assets can be standardized and subdivided can they achieve composability, routability, and programmability—prerequisites for integration into automated clearing and on-chain settlement systems. In other words, fractional shares are not primarily about “making assets affordable to more people,” but about establishing the technical bedrock for digital asset circulation.
(4) Native Digital Securities
On the concept of “native digital securities,” the NYSE likewise provides exceptionally clear boundaries. Its aim is not—as Nasdaq does—to simply map existing equities onto on-chain representations. Instead, it explores a fully native, on-chain-born security form, beginning with ownership rights.
This means dividends, voting rights, and corporate governance mechanisms are not retrofitted via off-chain rules, but directly embedded into the lifecycle of the digital security itself. This is not a superficial technical upgrade—it is a fundamental redefinition of how securities exist.
Once native issuance is permitted, every aspect—including ownership verification, shareholder registry logic, dividend distribution, voting, governance, custody, and transfer restrictions—must be redesigned from the ground up. Equally compelling is the NYSE’s decision to restrict distribution channels exclusively to qualified broker-dealers—a deliberate pre-emptive answer to regulators’ core question: This is not an unregulated, free-for-all “wild token market” open to retail minting and unrestricted circulation; it retains order, thresholds, and oversight.
II. Why Now?
Why now? Why would the NYSE propose such a seemingly “radical” reform at this precise moment?
Any genuinely mainstream financial innovation is ultimately tested—not by how compelling its narrative sounds—but by whether its underlying system is robust enough to handle large-scale, low-tolerance capital inflows.
Over recent years, the market has seen no shortage of discourse around “on-chain,” “decentralization,” and “efficiency revolutions.” Yet these ideas remain largely theoretical—because they often rest on immature foundations of funding, clearing, and risk control.
The NYSE, however, displays remarkable strategic acumen: rather than attempting to run a blockchain system centered on itself, it embeds tokenization within existing market infrastructure.
Its parent company, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), is partnering with traditional core banks—including BNY Mellon and Citibank—to support tokenized deposits and related funding instruments within its clearinghouse ecosystem. This arrangement enables clearing members to continue transferring funds, meeting margin obligations, and managing risk exposures—even outside banks’ operating hours—thus providing tangible, real-world funding and liquidity support for 24/7 trading.
TechFlow emphasizes this point: once money itself becomes tokenized, we are no longer discussing “conceptual assets”—we are discussing “money” itself. At that point, regulation, risk management, and access standards must be elevated to the highest possible level—or the system simply cannot sustain mainstream societal trust.
Precisely for this reason, the NYSE does not attempt to “start from scratch” in market structure design. The platform stresses “non-discriminatory access” within a compliant framework—but this non-discrimination is strictly bounded: access is limited to qualified broker-dealers, and all trading activity remains embedded within existing market structures and regulatory logic—not operating outside the regulatory perimeter. Thus, the entities best positioned to succeed long-term will not be novel “counterparties,” but rather infrastructure layers that sit atop compliant trading systems—serving user understanding, asset allocation, and trading access.
Amid this macro trend, securing a strong ecological position—and capturing on-chain liquidity gateways—has become an inevitable battleground for platforms including Ondo, Kraken, and MSX. This race includes not only crypto-native giants like Ondo, but also specialized players like MSX—deeply focused on U.S. equity tokenization—who are building defensive moats through high-frequency listings and launching innovative derivatives. For such agile, precision-targeted mid- and small-sized players, successfully anchoring themselves in this wave opens vast future potential.
Meanwhile, tokenization does not alter the legal nature of securities: tokenized shareholders retain, in law, the full dividend rights and governance rights associated with traditional securities. This point was deemed crucial in discussions: when a product seeks entry into mainstream capital markets, clarity of rights and stability of ownership matter far more than the technical implementation path.
At a macro level, the NYSE isn’t merely tackling transaction efficiency—it’s confronting the long-standing problem of fragmented liquidity in traditional markets. By combining “high-trust institutional arrangements” with “more efficient technological tools,” it aims to redirect trading demand—currently flowing into dark pools, OTC structures, or unregulated platforms—back into a transparent, auditable, and accountable system. A recurring consensus emerged in discussions: truly cyclical-resilient innovations are rarely the most radical ones—but rather those rigorously stress-tested on compliance and infrastructure grounds. Once such a structure proves viable, mainstream capital inflows won’t act as resistance—they’ll accelerate adoption.
From a legal perspective, the deeper significance of this process extends well beyond technological upgrade—it resembles a phase-level evolution in capital formation. Through on-chain clearing and custody, traditional financial institutions can enhance the global scope and temporal continuity of asset allocation—without overturning existing securities laws or regulatory frameworks. This is not “old systems replaced by new technology,” but rather “new technology integrated into the most core, tightly governed logic of old systems”—and that, precisely, is the prerequisite for mainstream finance to genuinely embrace any new paradigm.
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