NYSE Taps Bitcoin (BTC) Veteran Blockchain.com to Tokenize US Stocks for 44M Accounts

NYSE Opens a 24/7 Distribution Channel

The New York Stock Exchange and Blockchain.com signed a memorandum of understanding on September 23, 2026, aimed at giving global users around-the-clock access to tokenized versions of US-listed stocks and ETFs. Under the arrangement described in the companies' joint announcement, eligible Blockchain.com users would connect to the digital alternative trading system (ATS) that NYSE is developing — a platform designed not only for 24/7/365 trading but also for fractional share ownership and blockchain-based settlement. Blockchain.com brings distribution reach to the table: the crypto exchange veteran, best known as one of the earliest Bitcoin (BTC) wallet providers, counts more than 44 million verified accounts, and its customers would gain a window into tokenized securities well beyond traditional market hours. The deal has a second leg. ICE Data Services, part of NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange, plans to distribute Blockchain.com's crypto market data and analytics to its own clients, while Blockchain.com will integrate certain ICE and NYSE data feeds so those same users can view real-time equity market information. Nothing is live yet. Trading begins only once NYSE's platform is operational and the necessary regulatory approvals are in hand, and the parties did not disclose which countries would be served or when the service would actually launch.

MoonPay Buys SEC-Registered Infrastructure

MoonPay, meanwhile, is buying its way into regulated rails. On the same day, the payments company announced a definitive merger agreement to acquire North Capital Investment Technology, a private-market infrastructure provider whose group holds SEC-registered broker-dealers, an alternative trading system, a transfer agent and an investment adviser. The transaction was unanimously approved by both companies' boards and remains subject to regulatory clearances before closing. North Capital's platform has processed more than $8.7 billion in transaction volume, and its PPEX ATS — an SEC-registered marketplace — supports secondary trading in private, exempt and digital-asset securities, with over 1,250 approved assets listed. Beyond the licenses themselves, the group covers capital raising, investor onboarding, trade execution, escrow, custody and secondary-market services. MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright framed the acquisition as building the regulatory foundation that tokenized real-world assets need for mass adoption. One gap in the record: MoonPay did not disclose the purchase price in its official release. Press reporting put the deal at more than $60 million paid entirely in stock, but that figure does not appear in the companies' own announcement and should not be treated as confirmed.

Robinhood Stock Tokens Scale Up

Robinhood's Stock Tokens show where the product category is already heading. International and Crypto lead Johann Kerbrat laid out the mechanics in a post on X: all Robinhood Stock Tokens are backed 1:1 with real shares held in secure custody, and the firm is developing a redemption mechanism that lets holders exchange tokens for the underlying equities one-for-one. Voting rights for eligible token holders are also on the roadmap, supported by the existing Say by Robinhood shareholder-services platform. Scale is compounding quickly. Kerbrat put Stock Tokens TVL above $170 million and cumulative DEX volume on Robinhood Chain near $50 billion, and as of September 23 the chain's total TVL had passed $1 billion, with $1.5 billion in 24-hour DEX volume reported. The tokens are designed to be composable, meaning they can plug into smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) beyond simple buying and selling. On the LONG issuance platform, communities have already built markets pairing custom tokens with corporate Stock Tokens — Artificial Inu against NVIDIA's stock token, for example — where a share of buy-side fees accrues into a community vault holding the paired equity. Robinhood's official X account teased on September 23 that “Something is coming to Stock Tokens”, with no details disclosed. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

post on Xhttps://x.com/JohannKerbrat/status/2099518025296994720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The Licensing Race Behind Tokenization

What ties the three announcements together is that the bottleneck has moved from technology to licenses. Tokenizing an asset on-chain is now table stakes; what NYSE, Blockchain.com and MoonPay each spent September 23 pursuing is regulated plumbing — SEC-registered ATSs, broker-dealers, transfer agents — that makes tokenized equities usable at scale. Our reading of the companies' own releases: the NYSE-Blockchain.com memorandum and the MoonPay-North Capital merger are both signed but inert until regulators sign off, and neither discloses launch geography nor, in MoonPay's case, a price. If the tokenization bull market is to deliver, 2026's competitive front will run through licensed infrastructure, and the milestone to watch is the first such approval clearing.