Nasdaq has received approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a pilot program allowing tokenized versions of stocks and other securities to trade on its exchange alongside traditional counterparts.
The program, which is limited to eligible participants, will share the same order book and identical shareholder rights as their traditional counterparts. This move marks a significant step towards broader adoption of blockchain technology in traditional financial markets.
The pilot program will be limited to securities from the Russell 1000 Index, exchange-traded funds that follow the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, and other eligible participants. The SEC had raised concerns about market surveillance and price gaps between tokenized and traditional versions of the same stock, but Nasdaq later filed an amendment addressing these issues.
The approval comes as part of a broader shift in how US regulators have approached digital assets under the leadership of SEC Chair Paul Atkins. The agency has moved away from an enforcement-heavy stance towards building clearer rules for the industry.