Three tokenized-stock plans in 12 days use three ledger designs, and only one is public

Three plans to put US stocks on a blockchain were announced in 12 days, from October 28 to November 9, and each uses a different ledger design: a network chosen by the clearing house, a dedicated ledger for an exchange affiliate, and a public blockchain with permissioned trading pools. The Depository Trust Company (DTC) is live; the other two are plans that depend on the SEC.

Three announcements, side by side

	DTC Tokenization Service	NYSE-affiliated platform	Formation Securities venue
Announced	October 28	November 9	November 9
Ledger	Canton Network and DTCC's private Besu network	Avalanche, as "dedicated infrastructure"	Solana, a public, permissionless blockchain
Who can take part	20 DTC participants have signed	Platform subscribers	Verified participants
Status	Launched	Subject to regulatory approvals	Trading expected in early 2027

Source: the DTCC, Ava Labs and Formation Securities press releases.

The clearing house tokenizes what it already holds

DTCC said that DTC, its subsidiary, launched the DTC Tokenization Service on October 28 to mint tokenized representations of assets held at DTC. The tokenized securities, which DTCC calls digital twins, "retain the ownership rights, investor protections and economic entitlements of their traditional counterparts," the release said, and DTC has more than $114 trillion in assets under custody.

The service rests on a no-action letter DTC received from the US Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2025, covering Russell 1000 constituents, exchange-traded funds tracking major indices and US Treasury securities. DTCC said it uses a multi-network model: the service is integrated with the Canton Network and DTCC's private Besu network, with more blockchain networks to be added in 2027.

Twenty DTC participants had signed agreements to use it, DTCC said, among them Citi, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley. FinanceInTime covered the launch in its report on Morgan Stanley's use of the service.

An exchange affiliate wants control over the participants

Ava Labs said on November 9 that Avalanche will provide the core ledger technology to the clearing firm of a planned platform affiliated with the New York Stock Exchange. The release said the platform will use Avalanche as its blockchain, "creating dedicated infrastructure designed to bring clearing of tokenized equities onchain at institutional scale." It added that, subject to regulatory approvals, the platform is designed to allow 24/7 trading, clearing and settlement.

Dennis Lee, the NYSE's Head of Digital Issuance, said in the release that the platform will support equities listed on a range of blockchains, but that the ledger that records and settles trades must "let us control who can take part." The release gave no launch date. FinanceInTime reported the announcement in its article on the Avalanche choice.

A public chain, with permissions added at the trading layer

Formation Securities said it notified the SEC on November 9 that it intends to operate a tokenized securities venue on Solana, "a public, permissionless blockchain." It plans to operate under the SEC's Innovation Exemption, which it described as permitting secondary trading of eligible tokenized stocks "through permissioned automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pools on qualifying venues."

So the chain is open, while the venue is not: the company said access will be "limited to verified participants" and that the venue will operate under the exemption's conditions, "including limits on listed securities and trading volume." Trading is expected to begin in early 2027, with tokenized shares of Exodus Movement (NYSE: EXOD), Forward Industries (Nasdaq: FWDI) and Galaxy Digital (Nasdaq: GLXY) anticipated at launch. FinanceInTime covered the notice in its report on Formation's plan.

What the three have in common

All three keep a gatekeeper between the ledger and the investor. DTCC limits the service to participants that sign agreements, the NYSE executive asks for control over who can take part, and Formation limits access to verified participants. The designs differ on where that gate sits: in the clearing house's own network choice, in a dedicated ledger, or in the trading venue on a public chain.

Two of the three also describe shares that keep their ordinary rights. DTCC said its digital twins retain ownership rights and protections, and Formation said eligible tokenized stocks must provide the same rights and privileges as traditional shares, including voting and dividend rights. Ava Labs' release does not describe the rights attached to shares on the NYSE-affiliated platform.

What the announcements do not show

DTCC's release gives the number of signed participants but not the number of securities tokenized or the value traded. Ava Labs' release gives no launch date and does not name the clearing firm. Formation's release is a company statement about a notice to the SEC; FinanceInTime has not seen an SEC response, and the exemption's limits on listed securities and volume are not quantified in the release.

None of the releases says which design will attract more trading, and a plan for 24-hour trading says nothing yet about how much volume it will draw.

The permission list matters more than the chain

We think the debate over which blockchain wins is the less useful question. All three plans keep the traditional gatekeepers (a clearing house, an exchange affiliate, a venue that verifies investors), so the chain mainly changes how settlement is recorded, while the permission lists decide who can trade. Our reading is that the DTC service, because it is live and attached to $114 trillion in custody, sets the baseline the other two must beat on cost and access.

The opportunity is faster settlement and trading outside exchange hours under regulatory conditions. The threat is fragmentation: three ledgers with different rules could leave tokenized shares of one company split across venues that cannot easily trade with each other. We do not forecast token prices and take no view on any blockchain's coin. We would watch the SEC's response to Formation's notice, the NYSE affiliate's approvals and the first volume figures from DTC. We expect the designs to coexist through 2027 if the SEC accepts the exemption's conditions, and a regulator limiting the notice or the platform would prove this reading too sanguine.

The view in this final section is FinanceInTime's editorial opinion, for information only. It is not investment, tax, legal or other advice, and it does not take your circumstances into account. Forecasts are uncertain and past results do not guarantee future ones.