The New York Stock Exchange and crypto exchange Blockchain.com have signed a memorandum of understanding to debut tokenized stocks.
According to a Wednesday statement, if approved, Blockchain.com users would be able to trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds on NYSEs planned digital alternative trading system.
It comes as Wall Street increasingly eyes up Bitcoin and its related infrastructure. NYSEs parent company, Intercontinental Exchange, earlier this year announced it had invested in crypto exchange OKX.
“People shouldn‘t be limited in owning stocks based on where they happen to live or the brokerage and information they may or may not have access to,” Peter Smith, Blockchain.com’s executive chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
“Connecting to the NYSE digital alternative trading system will enable us to extend the opportunity to invest in these digital assets to tens of millions of Blockchain.com users around the world.”
And NYSE Group President Lynn Martin added: “The future of capital markets belongs to institutions that unite the trust of traditional finance with the innovation and accessibility of digital assets.”
In January, the NYSE said it was building a platform allowing traders to buy and sell tokenized versions of U.S.-listed equities and exchange-traded funds and settle those trades on the blockchain, 24/7.
Wall Street has been eying up crypto companies and their infrastructure particularly because its interested in tokenizing assets like stocks. Traditional finance titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton for years have used blockchain rails to tokenize money funds.
But things have accelerated since the U.S. elected pro-crypto president Donald Trump and regulators have taken a more friendly stance to watchdogging the space. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week approved tokenized stocks trading.
In January, the S&P 500 gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, giving traders the ability to trade the stock index 24-7.
And Last month, Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, and fintech company SoFi Technologies, announced a deal to route SoFi customers‘ crypto orders through Kraken’s institutional trading platform and list SoFis stablecoin on the exchange.