Author: Crypto Salad

The strong narrative ability of SpaceX, as long as you pay a little attention to readers of Musk's Starlink and Mars colonization stories, I believe you have felt it. Many friends who were previously completely indifferent to the US stock market have also personally messaged Crypto Salad, wanting to know how to enter the US stock market. For us Chinese residents, entering directly is something with barriers. Therefore, many people have rekindled their enthusiasm for "tokenization of US stocks." Crypto Salad here does not make any investment advice or recommendations; it's the same as before, to break down and clarify the underlying logic of US stock tokenization, and the rest is up to everyone to judge.

In the previous article “Global Listing, 24-Hour Stock Trading? Analyzing the NYSE's On-Chain 'Conspiracy'”, we detailed what kind of US stock tokenization platform the NYSE wants to achieve and analyzed its underlying logic in depth. If in the past year, US stock tokenization was still limited to Web3 exploration and attempts, then the official launch of tokenized stocks by NASDAQ and the NYSE in 2026 has completely ended this “self-amusement” within the industry. The Berlin Wall between US stocks and crypto assets has actually fallen.

Previously, we have dismantled the technical elements of the NYSE platform, including 7×24 hour trading, fractional shares mechanism, instant settlement based on stablecoins, and the issuance of native digital securities. This article will not repeat these details but will attempt to answer two deeper questions: Why did the NYSE choose to launch at this point in time? What is the future of US stock tokenization?

1.“Why now?”

To understand “why now,” one must first grasp where the true constraints of the securities market lie. The reason traditional markets have long maintained fixed trading hours is not because the matching system cannot operate continuously, but because clearing, settlement, and margin management heavily rely on bank operating hours. Once the banking system closes, the flow of funds and risk control break down, and trading hours are naturally limited. The NYSE's proposal to cover the funding gap during non-business hours through on-chain settlement and tokenized financial instruments is, in fact, reshaping the time structure of the market.

The NYSE is backed by its parent company, ICE, which is collaborating with Bank of New York Mellon and Citibank to promote tokenized deposit arrangements, allowing clearing members to allocate funds and fulfill margin obligations during bank non-business hours. This is an extremely crucial step; the systemic risk of 24-hour trading does not lie in the matching but in whether margin and liquidity can continue to operate. When “money” itself is tokenized, 7×24 hours become realistically feasible.

So, why is it necessary to work on timing? In the traditional financial context, weekends, holidays, and late nights are liquidity gaps. Even if there is dark pool support, it cannot truly carry out real price discovery due to time constraints and dispersed participants. Platforms for US stock tokenization cannot truly achieve 7×24 hours.

However, in 2026, this “financial vacuum period” is being violently filled by the tokenized contract market. In the current capital market, risk appetite is now revealed in “minutes.” For example, the recent total trading volume of a series of contracts on the world's largest decentralized prediction market, Polymarket, regarding “US military strikes on Iran” actually exceeded $529 million. While ordinary investors are still repeatedly confirming “Iran,” “casualties,” and news releases in the search bar, real money has already completed risk pricing through the odds of prediction markets. Meanwhile, BTC, as a risk asset with 24-hour liquidity, is also synchronously reflecting geopolitical breathing, changing almost every second.

This may be one of the reasons the NYSE must "flip the table." If US stocks continue to maintain that 9-to-5 clearing system, they will completely lose the “initial pricing power” over global core assets.

But if we merely understand this as an upgrade of post-trading, we still underestimate its significance. When funds begin to settle on-chain, the ecological niche of financial institutions will undergo redistribution. The traditional path involves banks holding funds and earning interest rate spreads while brokers earn trading commissions and issuers tell stories to attract capital. Funds circulate sequentially between different institutions, with each link having its own profitability logic. When stablecoins become settlement and margin tools and trading, clearing, and fund management can be conducted on the same technical layer, the value chain originally dispersed among different institutions may be compressed to fewer nodes. On-chain platforms can not only earn trading commissions but may also participate in fund management and liquidity organization. Of course, this does not mean banks will disappear, but it does mean that funds no longer need to settle within the traditional banking system. To express it more intuitively: in the past, you had to first deposit money in a bank, then transfer it to a brokerage account to complete a trade; the future path may become that the wallet is the account and settlement is completion. The shortening of fund pathways is, in itself, a structural shock.

It is precisely for this reason that the NYSE chose not to break away from the regulatory system to start anew, but deliberately embedded tokenization within the existing market structure. The platform emphasizes non-discriminatory access but is limited to qualified broker-dealers. Tokenization does not change the legal attributes of securities; holders still fully enjoy dividend rights and governance rights. The on-chain form of assets does not change their legal essence. The restraint here is crucial: the NYSE does not want to establish a “wild token market,” but aims to incorporate on-chain forms into the core and most rigorous securities regulatory logic. Innovations that can truly traverse cycles are never the most radical, but the forms that can withstand compliance and infrastructure tests.

2.What is the future of US stock tokenization?

Major Web3 exchanges have an innate sensitivity and rapid response gene. While mainstream media are still trying to analyze where SpaceX holds value, platforms like Maitan MSX have already opened the Pre-IPO market for SpaceX. Other exchanges are taking corresponding actions; Robinhood even launched Robinhood Ventures, allowing everyone to participate in investing in private equity funds focused on developing future technology non-listed companies. According to Kraken reports, its tokenized stock perpetual contracts (xStocks) launched last year amassed a trading volume of $25 billion in less than a year.

But in reality, exchanges may not necessarily be the only traffic entry point in the future. As Binance, Bitget, OKX, and various Web3 wallets begin to support the buying and selling of on-chain assets, the wallet itself has become the new generation of traffic entry. Wallets are no longer just tools for storing coins but interfaces aggregating trading, DeFi, staking, and investment. When assets can flow directly on-chain, the traditional path of “depositing into exchanges for trading” is also being shortened. Who is DeFi actually making money from? It is earning the difference brought by the efficiency of fund flow and market-making income, redistributing traditional intermediary structures. When the NYSE launches the tokenized platform, it is actually responding to this reality: if mainstream exchanges do not actively enter on-chain forms, on-chain liquidity will form a self-circulation on other platforms.

A deeper level of competition and cooperation is also occurring between stablecoins and sovereign digital currencies. We have been researching RWA for more than a year and believe that currently the most successful RWA is stablecoins, while the explosive growth of RWA is stocks of listed companies. At some future point, true real asset RWAs will become increasingly prevalent. The US has clearly stated that stablecoins will not be issued directly by the central bank but will allow market participants to participate; China has clearly stated that only the state can issue digital renminbi. Whether stablecoins can earn interest and have attributes similar to bank deposits is a competition for the monetary ecological niche. When stablecoins become settlement tools, they not only serve as payment media but are closer to a “digital form of legal currency.” If the NYSE platform uses stablecoins as its settlement foundation, it will inevitably participate in this broader institutional competition.

3.Conclusion

If 2025 is the year of application and exploration for US stock tokenization, then 2026 may become the year of institutional forks. As the post-trading system begins to loosen, as the funds themselves begin to be tokenized, and as wallets become new traffic entry points, the time structure and funding structure of the securities market are quietly being rewritten. This is not as simple as “stocks going on-chain,” but a migration of market infrastructure levels is taking place. In this process, whoever can simultaneously grasp the synergistic logic of trading, clearing, and funding will be closer to the market form of the future.

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