Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, said at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore that tokenizing Treasury bonds, stocks and money market funds could make tens of billions of dollars in collateral far more liquid. According to her, these assets currently sit idle between financial institutions because they cannot circulate in real time, whereas moving them to blockchain would enable near-instantaneous transfers between counterparties. Nasdaq plans to launch a 23-hour trading session starting December 6, 2026 as a first step toward continuous trading, deploying AI agents to support the transition. The CEO highlighted the GENIUS Act, the U.S. legislation regulating stablecoins, as a key driver that has partially unlocked institutional interest in tokenization. In March 2026, the SEC approved a Nasdaq pilot program for settling Russell 1000 stocks and major ETFs as tokens on blockchain, and Nasdaq invested 100 million dollars in Payward, the parent company of Kraken.
Source: Read the original article
