Tag: Nasdaq
Nasdaq Goes On-Chain: Issuer-Led Equity Tokenization With DTCC Settlement and Kraken Gateway Launches H1 2027 — Wall Street's Most Consequential Market Infrastructure Overhaul in a Generation
On March 8, 2026, Nasdaq officially announced its issuer-led equity token design — the most structurally significant move in US capital market infrastructure since the introduction of electronic trading. Tokenized equities will trade on Nasdaq markets, settle through DTCC/DTC in token form, carry full legal equivalence to traditional shares, and integrate blockchain records directly into official issuer share registries. The SEC granted DTCC a three-year no-action letter on December 11, 2025 — confirmed by Bloomberg — authorizing tokenized stock custody on pre-approved blockchains. Nasdaq's rule filing was published in the Federal Register on January 29, 2026. Kraken (Payward) is Nasdaq's global access gateway partner. The program goes operational in H1 2027. DTCC's permissioned DLT infrastructure uses Hyperledger Besu and the ERC-3643 standard. The global tokenized asset market stands at $28 billion today; Ripple and BCG forecast $18.9 trillion by 2033.
Congress Holds Its Most Consequential Capital Markets Hearing in a Generation: SIFMA, Blockchain Association, Nasdaq, and DTCC Testify on Tokenization Today as the CLARITY Act Markup Window Narrows and America's $16 Trillion Securities Infrastructure Faces Its Blockchain Reckoning
March 25, 2026: The United States House Financial Services Committee is convening its most consequential tokenization hearing in congressional history this morning — "Tokenization and the Future of Securities: Modernizing Our Capital Markets" — at 10:00 AM ET in Room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Witnesses testifying before the full committee include Kenneth Bentsen Jr., President and CEO of SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association representing America's broker-dealers, investment banks, and asset managers; Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association, who has been central to both the CLARITY Act negotiations and the SEC-CFTC digital asset taxonomy process; and executives from Nasdaq and the DTCC. The Modernizing Markets Through Tokenization Act of 2026 has been formally noticed for the session. The hearing arrives four days after the SEC approved Nasdaq's proposal to allow tokenized securities to trade alongside traditional shares on the same order book, and fewer than four weeks before the Senate Banking Committee's expected April markup of the CLARITY Act — with Senator Bernie Moreno warning that failure to reach the Senate floor by May could freeze digital asset legislation for years.