Avalanche’s AVAX token jumped as much as 10% on Monday, making it the top earner among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced plans to use its blockchain to settle trades on a new platform for trading tokenized stocks around the clock.
AVAX later eased to $8.86, still up over 8% on the day, according to CoinGecko data as of 03:22 p.m. UTC. The token currently has a market cap of around $3.95 billion, with $439.7 million traded over the past day. The Avalanche blockchain boasts a total value locked (TVL) of $633 million, up 4% over the past 24 hours, according to DeFiLlama.
“At the NYSE, we’re looking at how blockchain technology can expand what we offer in equities, and we’re picking the right technology for each job,” Dennis Lee, the head of digital issuance at NYSE, said in an announcement.
The deal underscores a growing effort by Wall Street firms to use blockchain technology to make stock trading faster and allow investors to trade outside regular market hours. Typically, traditional US stock markets are open from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm EST on weekdays, with trades often taking at least one business day to settle.
The NYSE first announced plans for the platform in January. In September, Ava Labs revealed that the exchange had spent about a year testing Avalanche, but the blockchain’s final pick was not confirmed until Monday.
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NYSE chooses Avalanche
Ava Labs said that the NYSE will use Avalanche’s blockchain to keep track of stock trades and help complete transactions on its planned trading platform. The platform will let investors buy and sell digital versions of stocks on different blockchains, while Avalanche will be used to record those trades and make sure transactions are completed.
“The upcoming digital trading platform will support equities listed on a range of blockchains, though the ledger that records and settles trades needs to be fast and reliable, let us control who can take part, keep costs predictable, and have a large community of developers behind it. Avalanche meets all those needs,” Lee said.
The platform could launch before the end of 2026 if it receives regulatory approval, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Our first conversations with the NYSE team began nearly a year ago, and it’s remarkable how quickly we’ve progressed toward supporting this infrastructure,” John Nahas, chief business officer at Ava Labs told Cointelegraph. “It’s an important step toward blockchain becoming foundational financial infrastructure.”
Wall Street dives into tokenized stocks
The news comes as other major financial firms are also investing in blockchain technology to make stock trading faster and available around the clock.
In September, Nasdaq announced plans to invest $100 million in Kraken’s parent company, Payward, to launch tokenized stocks. The expected launch for that project is the second quarter of 2027.
Meanwhile, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which helps settle US securities trades, launched a service in October that allows financial firms to turn traditional securities into digital tokens.
“Today marks the culmination of years of work to bring tokenized securities into a regulated framework supported by trusted market infrastructure,” Frank La Salla, CEO of DTCC, said at the time. “By extending DTC’s resiliency, governance and operational standards into digital markets, we are establishing the foundation for responsible institutional adoption at scale.”
The NYSE deal also follows other financial firms’ efforts to bring traditional financial assets specifically onto Avalanche. In July, Japanese financial technology company Progmat announced it had moved more than 452 billion yen worth of digital securities onto a dedicated Avalanche blockchain.
And in September, Aave Labs announced plans to launch a lending service on Avalanche that would let financial firms borrow Tether’s USAT stablecoin using tokenized assets as collateral.
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cointelegraph.com