Wall Street’s Tokenization Model Takes Shape

Wall Street’s Tokenization Model Takes Shape

DTCC's Tokenization Service went live on October 28. There are 20 DTC participants including JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity and Bank of America, with more firms onboarding on a rolling basis. The service launched on Canton and DTCC's own private chain, with additional chains planned for 2027.

NYSE and ICE are also making progress towards building out a tokenized trading platform. Broadridge, Computershare, Equiniti and Superstate joined Securitize and tZERO as transfer agents. The three traditional agents serve nearly 5,000 listed companies, almost 99% of the S&P 500. Broadridge will also run proxy voting onchain so investors can vote from a wallet, a broker app or ProxyVote.

The same week, issuer objections to OKXICE, the OKX and ICE venue that would tokenize US stocks without issuer involvement, reached 50 in its October 30 notice, up from nine on October 15. Nvidia, Costco and Nike were among the latest.

On Monday the CFTC approved the first perpetual futures on individual US stocks for registered exchanges, a product that until now existed only offshore, days after ICE said it would bring Hyperliquid's perpetuals to US users.

The demand for off-hours trading is clear. On Robinhood Chain, 59% of volume in the month to October 23 came outside market hours. Solana’s share is above 63%. BNB Chain’s is above 70%. The IMF found the same pattern in its study of 11 venues, where more than half of all volume traded outside the regular session.

Tokenization Stocks Have Lagged Bitcoin Since Securitize Listed

Securitize listed on NYSE and tokenized its own shares on July 2. Four months later it trades 41% below its initial share price. Figure and Canton Strategic Holdings are down 36% and 28%, respectively. Over the same period, Bitcoin is up 25%. tZERO, named an NYSE transfer agent in August, said Monday it will join them on public markets through a SPAC merger with FG Imperii at a $350 million valuation.

These stocks are not trading on crypto sentiment, or they would be up with bitcoin. Most of what was announced this quarter does not earn revenue yet. 2027 will show how quickly these promising announcements turn into volume.

BNB Chain Has Overtaken Ethereum in Tokenized ETFs

Tokenized ETFs grew from $164 million at the end of 2025 to $687 million as of November 2. BNB Chain accounted for much of the growth, rising from $2 million at the start of the year to $309 million as of November 2. This makes BNB the largest chain by tokenized ETF/ETP value, beating out Ethereum at $229.2 million.

The rapid growth of tokenized ETFs comes as no surprise. Traditionally, traders and investors want index exposure vs individual equity exposure. ETFs are an easier product to tokenize than single stocks, from a permission standpoint as well. A tokenized Nasdaq 100 fund does not need permission from any of the 100 companies in it, while a third-party token of a single stock can now be blocked by that company within 30 days. We expect tokenized ETFs to keep growing faster than single stocks in 2027, much as ETFs overtook stock picking in traditional markets.