Nasdaq filed to tokenize stocks; the filing is about collateral | Opinion

In September, Nasdaq filed proposed rule changes enabling the trading of tokenized securities that would still settle through DTC, the traditional U.S. clearing and settlement system. Weeks later, Binance approved BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury fund as collateral for off-exchange institutional activity via triparty arrangements (including Ceffu). The push is on for assets that move faster and can post as margin automatically.

Tokenized equities remain subject to the full securities framework, and the SEC is still clarifying the market-structure details — especially around venues, intermediaries, and how execution should be governed. In December, we got a clearer signal of where this is heading when the agency granted DTCC’s clearing subsidiary a three-year no-action relief to tokenize DTC-custodied assets — including Russell 1000 stocks, major index ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries — on approved blockchains starting in 2026. The trajectory is clear: the world’s biggest institutions are already building for a future where tokenized assets function as regulated collateral, not speculative wrappers.

Recently, BlackRock’s Larry Fink wrote that tokenization is where the internet was in 1996, before Amazon became Amazon. Days later, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said tokenization has the potential to completely change the financial system over the next couple of years. These statements would have been unthinkable three years ago, but they are now the consensus among the people who run the largest pools of capital on the planet.

The tokenized real-world asset market now sits at $18.6 billion in distributed value, with over 570,000 holders. Add stablecoins — already well over $300 billion in circulating supply — and you’re looking at a settlement layer approaching the scale of a meaningful global financial rail. Major forecasts project $4 trillion or more by 2030. But market size is only one piece of a more important shift; what are these assets actually being used for?

Tokenizing an asset, on its own, creates a wrapper. A wrapper does nothing. The value appears when the asset enters a system that can use it: price it, rebalance it, lend against it, hedge it, and account for it across multiple positions simultaneously.

The institutions moving fastest aren’t just minting tokenized assets. They’re building collateral systems, rails that let tokenized assets function as margin, settle instantly, and move between positions without friction.

JPMorgan’s Tokenized Collateral Network converts money market fund shares into collateral that moves in seconds instead of days. BlackRock’s BUIDL is being used not just as a yield product, but as institutional collateral in off-exchange workflows via triparty arrangements. And Nasdaq’s approach matters because it doesn’t build a parallel market. Tokenized securities in its proposal would settle through DTC, the same settlement plumbing that handles trillions in traditional equities. To a prime broker, both versions can look operationally familiar, except the tokenized version can be programmed to post automatically, clear more seamlessly, and rebalance against other positions. In parallel, the SEC’s no-action relief for DTC formalizes that same idea at the core of U.S. market plumbing, while Coinbase prepares to list tokenized U.S. equities alongside crypto, and Tether (USDT) openly explores tokenizing its own equity to provide onchain liquidity for investors.

On the debt side, JPMorgan’s $50 million commercial paper issuance for Galaxy Digital on Solana (SOL) — settled entirely in USDC (USDC) — demonstrates what it looks like when bank-run money markets themselves become tokenized collateral flows.

Right now, each of these systems tends to map to one asset class or one workflow. JPMorgan moves money market shares. BUIDL posts as institutional collateral in specific arrangements. Nasdaq’s filing targets tokenized securities with DTC settlement. DTC’s new service will cover blue-chip stocks, ETFs, and Treasuries, and Coinbase’s plans center on exchange-listed equities. The next step — and the real 2026 inflection — is to connect them.

Imagine a single collateral system where Treasuries, equities, and gold function as one pool. A treasury manager holds tokenized short-duration Treasuries, tokenized gold, and exposure to tokenized equities. Today, these sit in separate custody arrangements with separate accounting and separate liquidation logic. In a collateral engine, they function as a programmable balance sheet. The system rebalances risk automatically, adjusts collateral ratios as prices move, and unlocks liquidity without forcing a sale.

This changes what yield products can look like: a liquidity position combining a stablecoin with a tokenized equity index, producing income inside the same instrument. Yield and protection structures that once required institutional minimums can be assembled from smaller positions and offered far more broadly.

The set of acceptable collateral will keep expanding. Tokenized short-duration credit, structured notes, regulated fund shares, sovereign debt from multiple jurisdictions  — anything that can be securely stored, priced, and verified onchain becomes usable.

Fink is right about the 1996 comparison, but the analogy needs one adjustment. The internet in 1996 was about information moving faster. Tokenization is about collateral moving faster. The point isn’t that assets live on a blockchain. It’s that they stop sitting still. Collateral that can rebalance itself, post automatically, and move across positions without friction is capital that finally earns what it should. Most capital sits idle because moving it is expensive and slow. Multi-asset collateral changes that. The portfolio becomes liquid, and the yield follows.
That is where the value of the next cycle will be created  — and the true infrastructure story of 2026.