Nasdaq has submitted a proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking approval for its members and investors to trade tokenized equity securities and exchange-traded products (ETPs). This would allow stocks of companies like Apple and Microsoft to be traded and settled in the form of blockchain tokens.

Tokenized securities are digital representations of traditional financial instruments on the blockchain, sharing the same value, rights, and market identification numbers (CUSIP) as their conventional counterparts. Trading would remain regulated under existing SEC rules.

The proposal aims to leverage existing market infrastructure, such as the Depository Trust Company (DTC), for clearing and settlement, ensuring investor protection, market transparency, and integrity while enabling more efficient trading processes.

Chuck Mack, Senior Vice President of Nasdaq, stated that tokenization could enhance settlement speed, audit trails, and process streamlining, responding to market demand. However, it must be implemented within the existing framework to avoid market fragmentation.

The next step involves a public comment period with the SEC, during which Nasdaq will collaborate with clients and industry participants to advance tokenization development.

Summary

A blockchain integration revolution led by traditional financial giants is rapidly gaining momentum.

On September 8, 2025, Nasdaq submitted a landmark proposal to the SEC, seeking approval for its members and investors to trade tokenized equity securities and ETPs on its exchange. This means stocks of leading companies like Apple and Microsoft could soon be traded and settled as blockchain tokens on Nasdaq.

"We are not looking to replace the existing system but to offer the market another, more efficient and transparent technological choice," said Chuck Mack, Senior Vice President of Nasdaq North American Markets, in an exclusive interview. "Tokenized securities are simply the same assets expressed in a new form on the blockchain."

Below is the full interview with Chuck Mack and Nasdaq, detailing how the proposal works, why it was introduced, and how it could change the way everyone invests.

What exactly does Nasdaq hope to achieve with this SEC submission?
Chuck Mack: Nasdaq’s proposed rule change would enable member firms and investors to trade tokenized versions of equity securities and ETPs on our market. Our goal is to integrate digital assets into Nasdaq’s current infrastructure and systems, fostering financial innovation while maintaining stability, fairness, and investor protection.

Specifically, the application provides a straightforward method for trading tokenized securities under existing regulatory frameworks, utilizing the DTC for clearing and settling transactions in token form.

Here’s how it works: A security can be traded on Nasdaq in either traditional or tokenized form.

• The traditional form is a digital representation of ownership and rights but does not use distributed ledger or blockchain technology.

• The tokenized form is a digital representation of ownership and rights using distributed ledger or blockchain technology.

When submitting an order, participants can choose to clear and settle in either conventional or tokenized form. The exchange will communicate the participant’s instructions to the DTC. All stocks will trade on Nasdaq under the same order entry and execution rules, with the same identification numbers (CUSIP), and grant holders the same rights and benefits.

What exactly are tokenized securities?
Chuck Mack: There are two components here: tokens and securities.

In this context, a token is a digital representation of any asset created and recorded on a blockchain—a data storage method initially popularized by Bitcoin. This could include coins like Bitcoin itself, tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar such as Tether (USDT), or blockchain-based representations of ownership or any other form of rights.

Meanwhile, a security is a tradable financial asset representing ownership in or a claim against a company—such as stocks or bonds.

Thus, tokenized securities are representations of these traditional financial instruments recorded on a blockchain or other distributed ledger technology.

From our perspective, it’s important to emphasize that while tokenized securities are technically different from those traded on Nasdaq today, under our proposal, they still represent the same store of value as their traditional counterparts.

After all, we already live in a digital world. Stocks and other securities are represented and recorded digitally today, so tokenization is simply a different method of digital representation.

What key details should everyday investors know about Nasdaq’s proposal?
Chuck Mack: Fundamentally, we propose leveraging existing U.S. market infrastructure for tokenized securities trading.

There is significant global demand for securities traded on Nasdaq, and this tokenization technology has generated emerging interest. What we are proposing is the ability to integrate, allowing market participants to use the systems they already know and trust to obtain tokenized digital representations of securities.

The proposed rule change would give investors a choice: to trade stocks or ETPs in tokenized or traditional digital form. If they choose the tokenized approach, the DTC will handle the back-end work to clear and settle the transaction, recording the asset as a blockchain-based token.

It’s important to note that such trading would still occur under existing SEC federal regulations, ensuring fair and orderly markets.

This is a key point in our application: Existing U.S. rules do not preclude different representation types for securities. If you trade a stock, and we tokenize it post-trade through the DTC, nothing changes in terms of how the market operates, how trades are executed, how best execution is achieved, or how buying and selling occurs on trading platforms.

Critically, both traditional and tokenized types of shares will have the same value, rights, benefits, and market identification numbers.

At Nasdaq, we believe tokenized securities can and should be built within the existing framework and guidelines of the market. That’s why this proposal is a significant way to introduce tokenization: It will allow this new technology to evolve and gain acceptance while ensuring the investor protections we’ve built over decades remain intact.

Why is Nasdaq interested in tokenized securities?
Chuck Mack: In some ways, it’s about responding to demand: Many players in the market, including Nasdaq, see the potential for tokenization to benefit investors, issuers, and the broader economy.

Blockchain technology offers potential efficiencies, including faster settlement, improved audit trails, and a more streamlined process from order to trade to settlement. Additionally, once equity assets are on-chain, they could be utilized in new ways.

All this potential has generated excitement about the technology, and we’ve heard market demand for trading tokenized securities. We want to be part of the solution, helping the market evolve to continue meeting investor needs while ensuring proper implementation.

Past market failures have taught us that governance, resilience, and investor protection must be embedded from the start.

Nasdaq is committed to being a trusted structure in the global financial system. This means embracing new technologies as the market changes, always prioritizing investors, and fostering capital formation. Ultimately, it comes down to choice. If investors and market participants express demand for a specific approach, and we can implement it in a way that preserves market integrity, we want to offer them that choice.

Why is Nasdaq proposing this specific model for introducing tokenized securities trading?
Chuck Mack: We want to make the process of trading tokenized securities simple and transparent for investors while leveraging the benefits of the current resilient and trusted equity trading ecosystem. The proposed rule change aims to enable innovation within the existing market infrastructure and structure, bringing new capabilities to investors while reinforcing the standards that make U.S. markets work, particularly:

• Scale and Complexity: The U.S. equity market is the deepest and most liquid in the world, handling billions of transactions daily. Any new system must operate at this scale with resilience, redundancy, and fail-safes.

• Investor Protection: The U.S. equity market has safeguards and oversight to maintain accountability for companies involved in the trade lifecycle, ensuring shareholder rights, dividends, and proxy voting.

Our proposal also explicitly seeks to keep tokenized securities trading under the umbrella of existing systems to ensure price discovery, disclosure, and best execution. The goal is to ensure these principles remain unchanged as the market evolves and modernizes.

Another motivation for evolving the current system is to prevent market fragmentation, where different versions of the same asset are offered across multiple blockchains for tokenized securities trading but do not interoperate well—especially if rules are not equally applied. If this happens, transparency could decrease, liquidity could fragment, and price decoupling would likely occur.

Capital formation with investor protection is essential for a well-functioning market, which is critical to keeping the economy running. At Nasdaq, we always say it comes down to liquidity, transparency, and integrity. We want to ensure these pillars are protected as the market evolves, which is what our application aims to achieve.

Nasdaq recently announced changes to its listing standards, and there have been subsequent news reports about crypto asset treasury company governance. How does this relate to today’s announcement?
Chuck Mack: Each of these issues is independent. First, we recently announced further enhancements to Nasdaq’s listing standards to address critical liquidity and trading issues for companies in today’s market environment. These enhancements primarily target certain micro-cap companies exhibiting low liquidity conditions.

Second, we’ve noted recent media coverage regarding crypto asset treasury companies. Nasdaq has not implemented any changes or new rules targeting these companies. As with any market development, Nasdaq consistently provides guidance to our listed companies on the applicability of our existing listing rules, including shareholder approval rules applicable to any securities issuance by listed companies.

Third, today’s announcement represents a separate submission to the SEC to facilitate the trading of tokenized securities on its market.

While each of these issues is distinct, a common thread guides Nasdaq’s actions in capital markets: optimizing capital formation toward our goals while protecting investors and ensuring market integrity.

What’s next for tokenized securities?
Chuck Mack: Our submission to the SEC will be published for comment, and we look forward to hearing diverse perspectives in response. In fact, part of why we submitted the application is to incentivize debate in a very transparent manner.

Meanwhile, our team at Nasdaq will work closely with clients and stakeholders to explain our thinking and gather feedback on how best to move the industry forward.

Globally, it’s clear that the adoption of tokenization will be a broad dialogue requiring coordination across the industry. Market infrastructure providers, regulators, issuers, asset managers, and fintech companies will all play a role.

We welcome these discussions because, ultimately, this aligns with Nasdaq’s core goal: driving economic progress for all.

Economies thrive on innovation and participation, and these forces require market structures that reduce friction and align incentives. Our tokenization proposal represents a step forward in the evolution of global financial markets.