SEC clears tokenized-stock pilot
The SEC approved Nasdaq’s plan to trade select Russell 1000 stocks and major ETFs as tokenized securities — tokenized and traditional shares will sit on the same order book with DTC settlement, opening the door to T+0 settlement experiments. That creates a live lab for microstructure work on execution cost, liquidity and arbitrage between tokenized and classic listings. (cryptotimes.io)
The SEC issued Order No. 34‑105047 (File No. SR‑NASDAQ‑2025‑072) on March 18, 2026, formally approving Nasdaq’s rule change to enable trading of securities “in tokenized form.” (sec.gov) The approved program covers “DTC Eligible Securities,” explicitly targeting large‑cap issues including Russell 1000 equities and major index exchange‑traded funds such as S&P 500 and Nasdaq‑100 trackers identified in Nasdaq’s filing and post‑approval commentary. ( ) (dtcc.com) Under the approved rule, a market participant will select a designated “tokenization” flag at order entry to request tokenized settlement, Nasdaq will relay that post‑trade instruction to DTC, and DTC would mint and deliver a token to a DTC‑registered (whitelisted) wallet while reconciling a control account in the legacy book‑entry system. ( ) (federalregister.gov) The order requires tokenized and traditional forms to trade on the same Nasdaq order book with the same execution priority, CUSIP and ticker when the tokenized instrument is fungible with the traditional share, and the Commission’s release notes tokenized trades handled by DTC would continue to settle on the existing T+1 cycle. ( ) (sec.gov) The SEC’s approval mandates reporting and surveillance parity: Nasdaq and DTC must provide tokenization data to the Consolidated Audit Trail and maintain existing market‑surveillance access for Nasdaq, FINRA and the Commission. (sec.gov) DTC obtained a staff No‑Action Letter on December 11, 2025 authorizing a limited, voluntary three‑year tokenization pilot and DTC has signaled an anticipated pilot launch in the second half of 2026; Nasdaq must issue an Equity Trader Alert at least 30 days before it will accept tokenized securities for trading. ( ) (sec.gov)
