The SEC’s fresh approval of Nasdaq’s tokenized securities framework marks a key turning point for how stocks could trade in the future: it brings blockchain into the core of U.S. equity markets, but on Wall Street’s terms.

The regulatory green light allows Nasdaq to test a system where certain stocks and ETFs can be issued and settled as blockchain-based tokens while trading alongside traditional shares. In practice, investors could hold tokenized versions of securities in digital wallets, with clearing and settlement handled by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

However, the effort isn’t a sweeping overhaul of market operations; rather, it focuses on post-trade plumbing.

DTCC executive Brian Steele said the firm aims to build “safe, secure tokenization services to advance a more resilient, inclusive, cost-effective and efficient financial system,” while working with exchanges and market participants to scale adoption.

Read more: Here is why Nasdaq and owner of NYSE are putting the $126 trillion equity market on blockchain

‘Biggest beneficiaries’

One of the main reasons Wall Street giants are moving to tokenizing stocks is that they can offer traders around-the-clock trading.

Traditional equity markets operate within fixed trading hours and rely on multi-day settlement cycles. Creating tokens of stocks on blockchain rails brings the possibility of near-instant settlement and, eventually, around-the-clock trading.

Val Gui, general manager at Kraken’s tokenized stock platform xStocks, called the approval “a clear signal the $126 trillion equity market will be shifting onto blockchain rails,” pointing to a future where stock ownership becomes “24/7 and global.”

“This builds on the SEC’s work with the DTC, and it’s an encouraging one,” said Ian De Bode, president of tokenization firm Ondo. “Progress toward 24/7 markets, even in permissioned form, is positive.”

“The biggest beneficiaries will be global investors… who have long lacked seamless, around-the-clock access to U.S. equities,” he added.

For that connection, Nasdaq said it is tapping crypto exchange Kraken to distribute stock tokens globally.

Wall Street keeps control

Still, Nasdaq’s model does not replace the old financial system. It only extends it to onchain securities.

Tokenized shares will still trade through brokers and settle via DTCC, with blockchain used mainly as an alternative record of ownership.

“Nasdaq is effectively ring-fencing the benefits of blockchain within the existing TradFi [traditional finance] stack,” said Maylea Ma, deputy general counsel at 1inch, a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator.

Investors may see faster settlement or more flexible ownership features, she said, but only inside a permissioned system that still relies on intermediaries.

“If tokenized equities cannot connect to broader onchain liquidity and non-custodial execution, the efficiency gains will be incremental rather than transformational,” Ma said.

‘Still a step behind’

While the move is a step towards the future of trading, U.S. is still lagging behind other jurisdictions.

Jesse Knutson, head of operations at Bitfinex Securities, who has worked on tokenized issuances in frontier markets like Kazakhstan and El Salvador, said the approval reflects regulatory progress but also highlights how far U.S. efforts still have to go.

“The flexibility of tokenization is what markets really want” offering 24/7 trading, fractionalization, real-time settlement and the ability to self-custody, he said.

In places like Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and El Salvador, regulators have already allowed tokenized securities to be issued and traded with fewer legacy constraints, including more direct investor access and blockchain-native settlement. Other hubs such as Switzerland and the UAE also moved faster to establish frameworks for digital asset issuance and trading, giving firms room to experiment.

“It’s an encouraging move… but it’s still a step behind more progressive jurisdictions,” Knutson said.

To be fair, U.S. regulators oversee the world’s largest and most dominant equity market — worth roughly $62 trillion — which leaves less incentive and flexibility to overhaul the existing systems in favor of newer blockchain-based models. Any changes must fit within a deeply entrenched market structure built around investor protection, intermediaries and centralized clearing.

But for now, the SEC’s decision suggests a clear direction: Tokenization is coming to public markets, and it will be shaped, at least initially, by the same institutions and rules that define them today.

Over $3b in leveraged Bitcoin and Ethereum longs sit just above key support levels, with Coinglass data showing a liquidation cascade risk in either direction.

Leveraged long positions across Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are sitting on a knife’s edge, with more than $3 billion in combined exposure at risk of forced liquidation if prices slip to critical support levels, according to data published by Coinglass on March 20.

For Bitcoin, the figures are stark. If BTC falls below $66,827, the cumulative long liquidation intensity across major centralized exchanges would reach $1.878 billion. That would represent one of the more significant cascading liquidation events in recent months, as stop-losses and margin calls trigger a wave of automatic selling that could further accelerate any downward move. On the upside, a break above $73,757 would flip the pressure onto short sellers, with $1.062 billion in short positions vulnerable to a squeeze.

Ethereum presents a similarly precarious picture. A drop below $2,029 would trigger $1.204 billion in long liquidations on mainstream CEXs, while a rally above $2,240 would put $881 million in short positions at risk of being unwound.

The data arrives at a sensitive moment for both assets. Bitcoin has been trading in a narrow range around $69,700 following a recent dip that attracted bearish interest. Notably, open interest data tracked by Coinglass showed that during yesterday’s price decline, BTC’s open interest actually increased as prices fell — a sign that short sellers were actively adding positions rather than covering. The subsequent rebound has done little to change the OI picture, suggesting the recovery lacks conviction from new buyers and that the market remains range-bound rather than in the early stages of a trend reversal.

Ethereum has likewise struggled to find direction, hovering near $2,130 with traders watching the $2,029 floor closely. With ETH already under moderate selling pressure on the day, the proximity to that liquidation threshold is not lost on market participants.

Liquidation maps of this kind serve as a window into the market’s structural vulnerabilities. When large clusters of leveraged longs accumulate just above key support levels, they can create a self-reinforcing dynamic: a price drop triggers liquidations, which push prices lower still, triggering more liquidations in turn. This “liquidation cascade” effect has been behind some of crypto’s most violent short-term price dislocations.

For traders navigating the current environment, the message from the data is clear: the market is coiled tightly around these levels, and a decisive move in either direction could trigger outsized volatility. With macro headwinds persisting — including rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and a risk-off mood in traditional equity markets, where the Nasdaq fell 0.88% in pre-market trading — the path of least resistance for crypto in the near term remains highly uncertain.

Stablecoin issuers and fintech-linked firms are launching payment-focused blockchains as they try to control more of the settlement infrastructure behind US digital-dollar transfers.

Some stablecoin issuers and fintech-linked companies are building a new wave of blockchain networks designed for institutional payment flows rather than the broader token issuance and smart-contract activity associated with general-purpose layer-1 networks, according to Delphi Digital.

These include stablecoin giant Tether-backed Plasma, a public L1 network optimized for cross-border USDt (USDT) transactions, which launched on mainnet on Sept. 25, 2025 after it raised $24 million in February. A month later, stablecoin issuer Circle launched the public testnet for Arc, which it describes as an open L1 blockchain purpose-built for stablecoin finance.

The developments add to signs of a structural shift from generic blockchain infrastructure toward payment-focused networks, as companies compete to control the rails underpinning stablecoin settlement, which Delphi Digital described as one of crypto’s clearest real-world use cases.

Fintech companies have also joined the payments infrastructure push, seeking to carve out a market share of the growing stablecoin payments sector.

Owning the payment rails is becoming “strategically important,” Ran Goldi, senior vice president of payments and network at digital asset custody platform Fireblocks, told Cointelegraph. He said:

“Instead of relying on external networks and paying fees to ecosystems like Ethereum, companies are looking to capture more of that value themselves by building or controlling the settlement layer.”

For payment companies, owning the underlying rails means they avoid being “taxed” for the mint and burn operations of the stablecoin, added Goldi.

Fintech companies are also joining the stablecoin chain wars

Tempo said Wednesday that its mainnet is live, describing the network as a merchant-focused settlement layer built for high-throughput stablecoin transactions. The project says it is incubated by Paradigm and Stripe.

In October 2024, Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure startup Birdge for $1.1 billion. In June 2025, it acquired crypto wallet infrastructure provider Privy and later bought billing platform Metronome on Jan. 14.

Delphi Digital said those deals positioned Stripe to control more of the issuance, wallet and billing layers around stablecoin payments alongside settlement infrastructure.

Stablecoin payment infrastructure is increasingly seen as a new “revenue layer,” positioning entities controlling the end-to-end payment workflow to capture fees on every transaction, according to Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet.

“As settlement costs at the protocol level trend lower, value capture shifts to the orchestration layer around the rail: compliance, FX conversion, wallet infrastructure, on- and off-ramps, local payout connectivity and merchant integration,” he told Cointelegraph.

Related: Stablecoins to replace old FX rails, but off-ramps remain a chokepoint

Controlling the settlement infrastructure behind stablecoins is the next battleground among crypto and fintech firms, according to Irina Chuchkina, chief growth officer of Wallet in Telegram. She said:

“Stablecoin payment rails could become the defining revenue driver of this cycle, for the same reason Visa and Mastercard became indispensable: not because they issued currency, but because they owned the pipes.”

Companies building settlement rails interoperable with agentic artificial intelligence stand to “capture a disproportionate share of the value flowing through these networks,” she added.