NYSE Launches 7*24 Tokenized Stock Trading: Which Crypto Businesses Will Directly Benefit or Suffer?

Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Azuma (@azuma_eth)

Last night, a blockbuster announcement directly ignited the cryptocurrency market — the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) officially announced it will launch a tokenized securities trading and on-chain settlement platform supporting 7*24 hour trading.

• Odaily Note: For details, please refer to "NYSE Plans to Launch 7*24 Hour Tokenized Stock Trading, Leaving 'Competitors' Stunned".

In short, the NYSE's on-chain stock tokenization solution mainly includes the following three aspects:

• This is a tokenized securities trading and on-chain settlement platform, planning to support 7×24 hour trading of US stocks and ETF funds, fractional share trading, stablecoin-based fund settlement, instant settlement, and will integrate NYSE's existing matching engine with a blockchain settlement system.
• According to the NYSE's plan, tokenized stocks will have the same dividend and governance rights as traditional securities.
• ICE, the parent company of NYSE, is also collaborating with banking giants like BNY Mellon and Citigroup to explore tokenized deposits and clearing infrastructure to support cross-timezone, round-the-clock fund and margin management.

Although many key design details of this platform remain unknown for now, based on the currently available information, we can preliminarily speculate on the market impact of this change — especially which businesses in the cryptocurrency world will be directly benefited or harmed when a major traditional player like the NYSE enters the field.

Potential Beneficiary Businesses

Speculation One: US-Compliant Stablecoins (e.g., USDC)

The NYSE explicitly mentioned in its announcement the introduction of "stablecoin-based fund settlement." This will directly introduce a top-tier new use case for stablecoins, promoting their adoption growth within the stock market — the world's largest and most mainstream asset trading market by capital volume — and stimulating stablecoin issuance and trading demand.

However, it's important to note that as a compliant platform, the NYSE will inevitably only choose US-compliant stablecoins under the GENIUS regulatory framework. While it's temporarily unclear which stablecoin the NYSE will adopt, Circle (USDC), currently the leader under the US compliance framework, is the most likely candidate.

Speculation Two: Tokenized Stock Futures Trading Platforms (e.g., Hyperliquid)

This speculation is based on the premise that the NYSE's tokenized stock trading platform will not support leveraged trading — at least, it was not mentioned in the initial announcement.

Market demand for leverage always exists. If the NYSE does not provide leverage services, some users with higher risk appetites will still choose to place orders on tokenized stock futures platforms that support leverage.

Previously, a major issue faced by such platforms was that while they natively support 7×24 hour trading, the stock market still follows traditional trading hours, leading to mismatched hedging windows, which objectively limits market maker participation and liquidity accumulation — once the NYSE's tokenized stock trading platform supports 7×24 hour trading, this problem will be solved.

Speculation Three: Basis Trading Protocols (e.g., Ethena)

Tokenized stocks, as a new asset class, will expand the selection of underlying assets for basis trading protocols like Ethena.

The biggest challenge such protocols previously faced was the lack of top-tier assets with sufficient liquidity and solid consensus. For example, Ethena, having only selected BTC, ETH, and SOL, already felt it was reaching a bottleneck. The NYSE's entry is expected to introduce more top-tier assets into the cryptocurrency market. Coupled with futures trading services based on these assets, it will unlock more arbitrage opportunities.

The same logic applies to the broader DeFi ecosystem. The influx of more high-quality assets is bound to bring more opportunities, although these impacts are relatively more indirect.

Speculation Four: Selected Infrastructure (e.g., Public Chains, Oracles, etc.)

Introducing stocks onto the chain in tokenized form for trading will inevitably rely on infrastructure such as public chains (underlying networks) and oracles (price feed services). However, who gets a piece of this pie depends heavily on whose services the NYSE chooses.

In this regard, resource capabilities oriented towards the traditional financial world may be more important than the first-mover advantage in the current native cryptocurrency market.

Potentially Negatively Impacted Businesses

Speculation One: Tokenized Stock Issuance Platforms

Most native tokenized stock issuance platforms in the current cryptocurrency industry use a synthetic/mapping mechanism, which inherently carries certain security risks and profit distribution issues.

The NYSE's entry will not only directly bring tokenized stocks with stronger backing but has also explicitly stated that "tokenized stocks will have the same dividend and governance rights as traditional securities". The latter will directly deliver a crushing blow to some native tokenized stock issuance platforms.

Speculation Two: Tokenized Stock Spot Trading Platforms

There's not much to say about this point; it's a direct case of a major traditional player encroaching on the core scenario.

However, such tokenized stock spot trading platforms are not without ways to break through. Feasible strategies include but are not limited to: advancing an offshore strategy, targeting user groups not covered by the NYSE's tokenized stock platform; introducing futures trading services...

The Change Has Arrived, Opportunities Remain

Overall, the NYSE's launch of a 7×24 hour tokenized stock trading and on-chain settlement platform will indeed directly impact some native cryptocurrency businesses. However, this does not mean the event constitutes a systemic negative for the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. The key is to distinguish between "what is being replaced" and "what remains."

From a business perspective, the NYSE's move this time clearly aims to reclaim the "tokenized stock trading" pie back within the traditional financial system. This undoubtedly means competition is intensifying, and some narratives will be severely compressed. But at the same time, the capabilities that the cryptocurrency industry is truly good at and that are difficult for traditional finance to fully replicate in the short term will be further amplified — including the stablecoin system required for round-the-clock settlement, futures trading centered around high volatility and leverage demand, and on-chain financial engineering capabilities represented by basis trading and structured strategies.

The arrival of this change is a given fact. Competition will indeed intensify, but opportunities also exist.