Nasdaq Greenlights Tokenized Stock Trading: Crypto Meets Wall Street
Published Date: 3/23/2026
Notice
Summary
Nasdaq just got a futuristic upgrade! Starting soon, investors can trade securities in a cool new way—using digital tokens instead of traditional shares. This change opens the door for faster, more flexible trading and could shake up how money moves in the market.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 1 mixed.
Nasdaq Approved to Trade Tokenized Securities
The SEC approved Nasdaq's rule change to allow trading of securities in tokenized form on Nasdaq under the DTC Pilot that was the subject of a December 11, 2025 No-Action Letter. Investors with investments may be able to buy and sell tokenized versions of eligible equity securities and exchange-traded products on Nasdaq once DTC's infrastructure is in place and Nasdaq gives at least 30 calendar days' notice.
How Tokenization Preferences Are Submitted
Market participants wishing to clear and settle an executed order in tokenized form must select a tokenization flag when entering the order; Nasdaq will communicate that preference to DTC on a post-trade basis. Nasdaq will not check at order entry whether the participant or security is DTC-eligible or whether DTC can execute the tokenization, so if tokenization cannot be executed (for example, due to an incompatible blockchain or unregistered wallet), DTC will settle the trade in traditional form.
Tokenization Limited to Specific Securities
Only DTC Eligible Participants may trade tokenized securities under this rule, and tokenized securities eligible to trade on Nasdaq are limited to (i) securities in the Russell 1000 Index at launch (and additions thereafter) and (ii) ETFs that track major indices such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100. Nasdaq will publish periodic Equity Trader Alerts identifying the current list of DTC Eligible Securities.
Tokenized Shares Treated Same As Traditional
Nasdaq will trade tokenized shares on the same order book and with the same execution priority as their traditional counterparts, keep the same trading fees, not differentiate tokenized shares in market data feeds, and continue settlement on a T+1 basis for trades handled by DTC. Market surveillance, order types, routing, trading sessions, and Nasdaq's risk and clearly erroneous rules will apply the same way to tokenized and traditional shares.
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