On March 12, 2025, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced its partnership with Securitize to tokenize shares listed on its markets. Three days later, the SEC published its first regulatory exemptions allowing the issuance and trading of security tokens without going through traditional clearing channels. These two events mark a turning point in the tokenization of traditional assets: it is no longer a marginal experiment driven by crypto startups. It is becoming a standard infrastructure that established financial players are integrating into their service offerings.
What is at stake here goes beyond simple technical modernization. It is the convergence of two worlds that had largely ignored each other: regulated markets, with their clearing houses and T+2 settlement-delivery timelines, and decentralized finance, with its instant settlements and on-chain transparency. The question is no longer whether tokenization will transform financial markets. It is understanding how this transformation is taking place, at what pace, and what concrete opportunities it opens for investors and issuers.
NYSE and Securitize: institutional validation of tokenization
The partnership between NYSE and Securitize is not a statement of intent. It is an operational deployment. Securitize, a regulated tokenization platform since 2017, brings its compliance infrastructure and blockchain registry compatible with SEC requirements. NYSE brings its liquidity, network of issuers, and regulatory credibility. Together, they are launching the tokenization of shares listed on Nasdaq and NYSE, with an initial batch of securities including technology stocks and index funds.
In practical terms, this means an investor can buy an Apple or Microsoft share as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, with the same economic and governance rights as the physical share. The token is backed 1:1 by the share held in custody by a regulated custodian. The difference? Settlement-delivery happens in minutes, rather than two business days on traditional markets. Transaction fees drop by 70 to 90% according to Securitize's estimates. And most importantly, trading can happen 24/7, regardless of stock exchange trading hours.
This infrastructure is not theoretical. It already processes significant volumes. As of March 18, 2025, Securitize manages over $2.1 billion in tokenized assets across 47 different issuances. The partnership with NYSE increases the number of eligible securities for tokenization by 50 times. We are moving from a niche offering (private funds, real estate, structured debt) to a mass market providing access to all 2,800 companies listed on NYSE, similar to Nasdaq's similar approach.
SEC exemptions: a regulatory framework adapting to blockchain
The NYSE/Securitize announcement would not have been possible without the regulatory evolution driven by the SEC since late 2024. On March 15, 2025, the Commission published three regulatory exemptions that redefine the conditions for issuing and trading blockchain securities. These exemptions build on existing rules (Regulation D, Regulation S, Regulation A+) by adjusting their criteria to account for blockchain specifics.
The first exemption concerns trading platforms. Until now, any platform enabling the exchange of securities had to register as an Alternative Trading System (ATS) and comply with extremely burdensome reporting requirements. Now, a blockchain platform can operate under a streamlined regime if it meets three conditions: asset custody by a regulated custodian, on-chain traceability of all transactions, and integration of an identity verification system (KYC) at the smart contract level. Securitize, Polymath, and tZERO obtained this exemption in the first wave of approvals.
The second exemption concerns holding periods for private securities. Traditionally, a security issued under Regulation D must be held for 12 months before it can be resold. This constraint made tokenization unattractive: why pay for liquidity if you cannot access it? The SEC reduced this period to 90 days for tokenized securities with complete on-chain traceability. The logic is straightforward: the blockchain provides a perfect audit trail, reducing manipulation risk and justifying a relaxation of holding rules.
The third exemption, the most impactful, authorizes instant settlement-delivery (Delivery Versus Payment, DVP) on blockchain without going through the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC). This is a major change in tokenization regulation. Until now, every transaction in a listed security had to be cleared by the DTCC, with unavoidable T+2 delays. Now, if the issuer and platform comply with precise technical specifications (atomic swap, audited smart contract, certified price oracle), settlement can occur in real time. This eliminates a central intermediary and reduces operational costs tenfold.
What this changes for traditional financial markets
These developments affect more than retail investors or niche issuers. They are redefining the fundamentals of financial infrastructure. Three impacts are already becoming clear.
Liquidity fragmentation. With the proliferation of tokenization platforms (Securitize, Polymath, tZERO, Backed Finance, Swarm Markets), liquidity is dispersing across multiple blockchain registries. The same Apple share can be tokenized on Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, and Solana, with slightly different prices across platforms. This fragmentation creates arbitrage opportunities but also complicates price discovery and order book consolidation. Liquidity aggregators (1inch, Matcha, CoW Protocol) become critical players for reconstructing a unified market view.
Compression of intermediary margins. Tokenization eliminates entire layers of the traditional value chain: clearing houses, registry operators, parts of transfer agent functions. BlackRock estimates that this disintermediation could reduce transaction costs from 0.5% to 0.05% of the amount traded. For an equities market handling $300 trillion annually, this represents a compression of $1.35 trillion in intermediary revenues. Established players (DTCC, Euroclear, Clearstream) must either evolve toward higher value-added services (advisory, compliance, risk analysis) or become obsolete.
Expanded access to private securities. Until now, investments in unlisted companies were reserved for qualified investors (accredited investors) with minimum ticket sizes of $100,000 to $500,000. Tokenization fragments these tickets. You can now buy $500 worth of shares in a venture capital fund or a real estate debt offering. This democratization significantly broadens the potential investor base. Securitize reports that 62% of tokenized security buyers in 2024-2025 are retail investors who had never previously invested in private assets. This trend concerns some regulators, who fear excessive retail exposure to complex products. Hence the importance of protective mechanisms (mandatory training, knowledge tests, exposure limits by profile).
ForYield's perspective
At ForYield, we have been tracking this evolution for 18 months. We integrated tokenized securities into several client portfolios starting in Q4 2024, particularly via Backed Finance (tokenized sovereign bonds) and Ondo Finance (on-chain money market funds). The results are compelling: returns equivalent to traditional instruments, management fees reduced by 40%, and most importantly, unparalleled management flexibility. Portfolio rebalancing can happen in 10 minutes instead of 48 hours, fundamentally changing risk management during periods of high volatility, as we explained in our guide on passive yield in crypto assets.
The NYSE/Securitize announcement validates our thesis. Tokenization is no longer an experiment. It is becoming a standard infrastructure progressively establishing itself across all market segments. We anticipate that by end of 2026, between 15 and 20% of new corporate and sovereign debt issuances will be tokenized. For equities, the pace will be slower (5-8%), as governance and voting rights issues are more complex to manage on-chain.
Our recommendation for investors: begin exposure now, but progressively and diversified. Regulated platforms like Securitize, Ondo, and Backed offer a solid entry point with manageable risk. Avoid unregulated platforms or those based in opaque jurisdictions. And crucially, do not overlook tax considerations: tokenized securities are subject to the same rules as traditional securities (capital gains, social contributions), but their on-chain traceability significantly simplifies tax reporting and optimization.
The transformation is just beginning
The tokenization of listed shares by NYSE and Securitize, coupled with SEC exemptions, marks the entry into a new phase of blockchain securities innovation. We are leaving the era of experimentation and entering large-scale deployment. Volumes will grow rapidly: Goldman Sachs forecasts that the tokenized asset market will reach $16 trillion by 2030, approximately 10% of current global market capitalization.
This growth will not be linear. There will be platform failures, security incidents, and regulatory adjustments. But the direction is clear. Traditional financial markets are gradually migrating toward blockchain infrastructure, driven by efficiency gains too significant to ignore. Players who anticipate this shift and adapt their technology stack now will gain lasting strategic advantage. Those who wait until the transition is complete will discover they have already lost five years.
