Author: Liang Yu

Editor: Zhao Yidan

As Nasdaq is determined to transform stocks into on-chain programmable tokens, the underlying code of global financial markets is quietly being rewritten. This is not a marginal revolution, but a self-evolution initiated from the heart of finance within a tightly regulated framework.

According to a report by Sina Finance on November 30, Nasdaq is actively promoting the tokenization of assets into the mainstream. Its head of digital assets, Matt Savarese, recently stated that the institution has prioritized the listing applications for tokenized stocks and will advance communication with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "as quickly as possible."

This statement has quickly attracted the attention of the global finance and technology sectors. According to a proposal submitted by Nasdaq to the SEC in September, its goal is to allow clients to buy and sell "stock tokens" as digital equivalents of publicly traded company stocks.

This means that the core of traditional finance—stocks—may appear before global investors in a brand new technological form, initiating a digital experiment to reshape asset forms within established rules.

I. Strategic Ambition: A Gentle Revolution by Traditional Giants

Nasdaq's push for tokenization is not a radical revolution but a carefully considered strategic evolution. Savarese clearly stated, "We will not change the existing system." He emphasized that the exchange's goal is to enable everyone to participate in this process and make tokenization more widespread. This position reveals Nasdaq's core strategy: it does not seek to establish a parallel system outside the existing regulatory framework.

Unlike some market projects aimed at disrupting traditional finance, Nasdaq's goal is to push tokenized assets into the mainstream "in a responsible, investor-oriented manner" within the regulatory framework of the SEC. This choice of "innovation within the framework" is, in fact, a rational judgment based on Nasdaq's own genes and historical experience. Savarese specifically mentioned that Nasdaq was historically the first exchange to transition from "paper" trading to electronic trading. Now, it is attempting to replicate this successful experience by advancing the existing electronic system to a more efficient "tokenized" new phase. The core of this path lies in using blockchain technology as an enhancement layer to the existing financial infrastructure, rather than a replacement.

II. Regulatory Game: Finding Balance Between Innovation Sandbox and Market Integrity

In promoting tokenization, Nasdaq faces not only market and technological challenges but also the need to find balance within a complex regulatory environment. Global financial regulators harbor both expectations for efficiency improvements from blockchain technology and deep concerns about market stability. The attitude of the SEC is particularly crucial. The "Innovation Exemption" framework launched by the SEC in 2025, as part of its "crypto project," aims to provide a space for crypto companies to test products in a relaxed regulatory environment. This policy attempts to strike a balance between encouraging innovation and protecting investors.

However, guardians of traditional finance have issued warnings about this. In an open letter in October 2025, the World Federation of Exchanges expressed strong concerns, arguing that adopting blockchain technology in an already highly mature stock market could result in costs outweighing benefits. The organization warned that tokenized stocks could undermine market integrity and lead to regulatory fragmentation. The market structure also faces new issues. Nasdaq's proposal embeds tokenization within the existing regulatory framework to avoid creating a parallel market. Tokenized securities will enjoy the same investor protection measures as traditional stocks, including market monitoring and anti-fraud mechanisms. However, the WFE believes that allowing digital asset platforms to offer services similar to traditional exchanges could weaken unified regulatory standards and increase systemic risk. This tension between regulation and innovation constitutes the main external challenge of Nasdaq's experiment.

III. Industry Ecology: Infrastructure Development from Theory to Practice

As Nasdaq steadily advances within the regulatory framework, a broader ecosystem for RWA (Real World Assets) tokenization has been flourishing globally, with various practical cases emerging rapidly. The actions of traditional financial institutions are particularly noteworthy. Amundi, Europe's largest asset management company, has launched its first tokenized money market fund shares on the Ethereum blockchain. This case demonstrates how traditional asset management giants can leverage blockchain technology to optimize the issuance and management processes of fund products, providing a reference template for more traditional institutions.

Technology companies are also actively building underlying infrastructure. In November, the micro-tech company Nano Labs, which is listed on Nasdaq, announced a new strategic plan called the "Next Big BNB Program." This plan focuses on developing a comprehensive RWA infrastructure and compliance ecosystem on the BNB chain, covering various asset classes such as stocks, bonds, new energy, and real estate. The expansion of asset classes far exceeds the realm of stocks. Emerging assets like carbon credits are becoming popular targets for tokenization. In October 2025, Datavault AI, a company focused on data tokenization technology, announced a patent licensing agreement with sustainable agriculture technology company Nature's Miracle. The latter obtained global authorization for Datavault AI's carbon credit tokenization system to develop blockchain-based carbon credit solutions. These diverse explorations collectively form the industrial foundation for tokenization to transition from concept to large-scale application.

IV. Market Testing: IPO Winter and the Revaluation of Crypto Companies

Despite the broad technological prospects, tokenized assets and their related companies are facing severe tests in the capital markets. The current IPO market environment in the U.S., especially for crypto-related companies, is experiencing a cold wave. Data shows that IPOs in the U.S. that raised over $50 million this quarter saw their stocks average a decline of 5.3%, while the S&P 500 index rose by 0.9% during the same period, creating a stark contrast. Crypto-related companies have become the hardest hit, with the five crypto companies that went public this year averaging a decline of 31% this quarter.

Specific cases are thought-provoking. The crypto exchange Gemini, which went public in September at an issuance price of $28, saw a 14% drop in the third quarter, with its stock price falling from the issuance price. The institutional crypto exchange Bullish, which went public in August, has seen its stock price drop by 38% since early October. These market performances pose challenges for all blockchain and crypto-related companies planning to go public, including Grayscale Investments and BitGo, which have publicly submitted IPO applications. Market analysts point out that in such an environment, while related companies may not be forced to delay their IPO plans, they may need to lower their pricing expectations. Investor interest may be more attracted to those projects that are "very unique" and can demonstrate clear paths to profitability and regulatory compliance. This indicates that the capital market is undergoing a calm revaluation of the crypto narrative, placing more emphasis on substantive business models rather than technological concepts.

V. Value Inquiry: Efficiency Revolution or Cost Trap?

Amidst the noisy technological narrative and volatile market sentiment, a fundamental question needs to be calmly examined: how much substantial improvement can tokenization bring to an already highly electronic and efficient modern financial market? James Oliver, head of the technical working group at the World Federation of Exchanges, has raised direct doubts. He believes that for assets like stocks, where trading and settlement are already highly automated, the incremental benefits of switching to distributed ledger technology are limited.

Oliver points out that the real challenge lies in coordinating different regulatory systems across multiple jurisdictions and integrating the new system with decades-old traditional financial infrastructure. The costs and complexities of these integrations may far exceed the efficiency improvements brought by blockchain technology itself. Supporters, however, propose the transformative advantages that tokenization may bring. Theoretically, tokenized securities could achieve near real-time settlement, shortening the traditional T+2 or even longer settlement cycles to minutes or even seconds. Through the programmability of smart contracts, complex and time-consuming processes in traditional finance, such as dividend distribution, exercising voting rights, and compliance reporting, could all be automated. The core of this debate lies in whether the marginal benefits brought by new technology are sufficient to cover the costs of migration and integration, which is precisely the key economic question that Nasdaq's experiment needs to answer.

VI. Future Outlook: A Path of Mutual Integration

Looking ahead, the development path of RWA and tokenization is unlikely to be a one-way disruption of traditional finance by blockchain, but rather a deep integration of mutual engagement. Nasdaq's attempts provide an excellent observation sample for this integration. Industry experts predict that if the regulatory path is clarified, we may see the rise of a "hybrid financial market." In this market, traditional financial institutions will be responsible for asset issuance, credit endorsement, and compliance frameworks, while blockchain technology will serve as an underlying tool to enhance the efficiency of trading, settlement, and asset management.

This division of labor will fully leverage the comparative advantages of all parties. The stablecoin issuer Circle, which went public in June, and the soon-to-be-listed "first RWA stock" Figure Technologies are both exploring their paths of integration. Figure Technologies' core competitiveness lies in its self-developed Provenance blockchain platform, which focuses on reshaping the trillion-dollar traditional credit market. From a broader perspective, the narrative of RWA is transitioning from concept to substance. According to a research report by Standard Chartered Bank in 2025, the total market value of tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, is expected to grow to $2 trillion by 2028. Currently, the total market value in this field is approximately $36 billion. At present, the largest market share is held by digital private loans and U.S. Treasury holdings, with the remaining portion including commodities, alternative funds, and various securities. This growth trajectory indicates that tokenization will become an undeniable structural trend in the global financial market in the coming years.

In Nasdaq's trading hall, the once bustling sound of telephone quotes has long been replaced by the low hum of server rooms. Now, these servers are preparing to handle a new type of asset instruction—crypto tokens. The daily trading volume of the global stock market reaches hundreds of billions of dollars; even if only a small portion of this is migrated on-chain, it will reshape the speed and trajectory of asset flows.

Nasdaq's tokenization experiment is essentially a self-renewal of the traditional financial system in the face of technological change. It neither fully embraces the decentralized philosophy of the crypto world nor rigidly adheres to the existing paths of the traditional system, but explores a pragmatic path of integration within the current regulatory framework. The success or failure of this experiment will not only concern the business innovation of a single exchange but will also profoundly influence the pace and manner in which the global financial market accepts blockchain technology.

In the future, RWA tokenization will not only inject new momentum into traditional financial markets but may also redefine the speed and manner of asset flows globally. In this process, the deep integration of traditional finance and blockchain technology may bring unprecedented changes to the global capital market, with Nasdaq standing at the forefront of this historical intersection.

Some sources of information:

· "Nature's Miracle Grants Datavault AI 35% Royalty License and Signs Global Technology Licensing Agreement Worth Millions of Dollars"

· "U.S. IPO Winter Approaches! Crypto Plummets Become Hard-Hit Area Grayscale, BitGo's Path to Listing Full of Thorns"

· "CEO Explains Nasdaq's 'Transformational Direction': Tokenized Trading, Tokenized IPOs, All-Weather Trading"

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