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Two of the most powerful stock exchange operators, the Nasdaq and ICE, partnered with major crypto exchanges to create and trade tokenized versions of traditional stocks on blockchains.
These alliances reflect a broader push toward an "everything exchange," in which all asset classes trade on a shared blockchain infrastructure.

Tokenized equities remain small today but could transform how the $126 trillion global stock market trades and settles. The race for that prize makes incumbents and crypto firms rivals and partners at the same time.

Wall Street's biggest exchanges are embracing digital assets by aiming to put the $126 trillion equity market on blockchains — but they are not going at it alone; rather, they are relying on crypto exchanges to get there.

Over the past week, two of the world's most powerful exchange operators — Nasdaq and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange — teamed up with digital asset exchanges to merge equities with blockchains through tokenization.

Nasdaq is developing a framework that would allow publicly listed companies to issue blockchain-based versions of their shares while preserving traditional ownership rights and governance. To distribute those tokenized stocks globally, the exchange is working with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken. The offering could go live as soon as the first half of 2027.

Meanwhile, just days earlier, ICE revealed a strategic investment in crypto exchange OKX at a $25 billion valuation. That deal includes plans to launch new tokenized stocks and crypto futures, allowing the exchange operator to tap into OKX's 120 million user base.

The "everything" exchange

The flurry of deals points to a bigger transformation in how markets might function in the future.

For decades, stocks, bonds and funds traded on separate systems with limited trading hours. Blockchain technology promises a unified, always-on marketplace — one that in the industry believe could eventually host the settlement of all financial assets in the forms of tokens.

Antoine Scalia, founder and CEO of crypto accounting and compliance platform Cryptio, said the developments point to a broader shift toward what he calls the "everything exchange" – a marketplace where all asset classes trade on the same infrastructure.

"For a very long time, it was just crypto people pushing the narrative that traditional finance and crypto would merge," Scalia said. "Now we see the major exchanges moving."

"That's a realization that eventually all assets will settle on blockchain rails," he said.

This shift is being accelerated by a January SEC Staff Statement on Tokenized Securities, which finally clarified that tokenized equities carry the same legal weight as their "paper" counterparts. That gives Wall Street incumbents the legal cover to enter the market for tokenized equity trading.

'Frenemy'

However, the key question, Scalia added, is which platforms will dominate that future market: traditional exchanges like Nasdaq or crypto-native venues such as Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken.

But that doesn't mean the two sides are purely rivals. In many cases, they need each other.

Traditional exchanges are looking for access to crypto-native traders, while crypto platforms want the distribution and credibility that established financial infrastructure provides, Scalia said.

"Distribution works both ways," he said. "Traditional exchanges want exposure to the crypto trading population, and there's huge demand from crypto users to trade other types of assets. At the same time, crypto-native firms benefit from the reach of these traditional players to bring more people into crypto markets."

The result is an unusual, "frenemy"-like relationship between potential competitors. "It's a very interesting dynamic with frictions and complementarity," Scalia said. "And it will be interesting to see how it plays out."