Nasdaq has received authorizations to trade digital copies of stocks. How will this change the market?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the application of the Nasdaq exchange to launch trading in securities in the form of digital assets - tokens. At the first stage, the project will cover shares of the largest public companies in the United States and major index funds. Tokenized securities will be traded in a single order book with traditional shares, at the same price, with the same tickers and with all investor rights preserved.

The Nasdaq initiative will allow investors to trade highly liquid stocks both in the form of traditional securities and in tokenized form. The list of securities admitted to digital trading will initially be limited to stocks from the Russell 1000 index of the largest U.S. public companies, as well as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) copying the composition of the key barometers of the U.S. stock market - the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, Reuters reports, citing regulatory documents. As Coindesk specifies, transactions in digital assets and conventional stocks will take place in a common liquidity pool. At the same time, quotes, stock tickers and legal rights of owners will remain identical.

Until now, tokenized shares could be traded mainly by investors outside the U.S. through platforms offering cryptocurrencies positions in the securities of companies at the level of Tesla and Apple, notes The Block. Now, with the launch of the project on Nasdaq, investors will have legal access on a regulated U.S. platform to the key advantage of tokenization - the ability to trade tokens linked to real assets almost instantly and around the clock, Coindesk states.

Last week, Nasdaq officials announced the development of an infrastructure that will allow public companies to issue blockchain versions of their securities. The exchange has partnered with crypto platform Kraken for global distribution of tokenized shares. Meanwhile, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), has invested in cryptocurrency exchange OKX, planning to launch new tokenized shares and cryptocurrency futures, Coindesk recalls.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor