NYSE Chooses Avalanche for Tokenized Stock Settlement

After roughly 12 months of testing, Avalanche was selected to provide the core blockchain ledger for the clearing firm supporting NYSE’s planned tokenized-securities platform, Ava Labs said on November 9.

The announcement assigns Avalanche a post-trade role. The platform’s clearing firm will use Avalanche to record and settle transactions, while the proposed venue is designed to accommodate equities issued across different blockchain networks. The design separates the settlement ledger from the range of networks on which securities can be issued.

The NYSE-affiliated digital alternative trading system, or ATS, is designed for continuous trading and onchain settlement, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, subject to regulatory approval. That schedule covers 168 hours a week and would let participating investors trade outside conventional stock-market hours. For practitioners, the decision fixes infrastructure, not authorization to launch continuous trading.

What does the settlement selection change for market participants?

For issuers, transfer agents and investors, the selection establishes the clearing record before the venue receives regulatory approval. It creates a common settlement architecture for digital and conventional securities while leaving the approval timetable and final operating rules unresolved.

NYSE first outlined the proposal in January: its existing Pillar matching engine would handle order matching, while blockchain infrastructure would support post-trade processing for tokenized US equities and exchange-traded funds. The scope includes securities represented digitally alongside conventional shares, as well as securities issued directly as tokens.

Investors would place orders in dollar amounts, buy fractional shares and fund transactions with stablecoins. Holders of eligible tokenized shares would retain conventional shareholder rights, including dividends and participation in corporate governance.

Access would run through qualified broker-dealers. NYSE says the platform would preserve established securities-market requirements within its blockchain-based trading arrangements.

How the settlement ledger was selected

NYSE Head of Digital Issuance Dennis Lee said the clearing ledger needed reliable transaction processing, predictable costs, controls over network participation and access to an established developer ecosystem. “Avalanche meets all those needs,” Lee said.

The roughly year-long evaluation, disclosed in a September report and equivalent to about 52 weeks, covered technical capabilities, operating costs and compatibility with NYSE’s existing trading systems. Ava Labs and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange also discussed the infrastructure throughout that period.

At the Avalanche Summit in New York, Ava Labs President Charley Cooper said NYSE had moved beyond a preliminary technology review and examined whether Ava Labs could satisfy its business and economic requirements.

ICE Head of Strategic Initiatives Michael Blaugrund said: “Avalanche checks a lot of those boxes for us.” At the time, neither company had confirmed which blockchain would handle settlement; the November selection resolves that infrastructure choice.

Ava Labs founder and CEO Emin Gün Sirer said the arrangement would provide dedicated infrastructure capable of meeting the platform’s operational and regulatory requirements. He identified predictable transaction costs, controlled participation and connectivity with other blockchain-based assets as central features.

The partners assembling the tokenized-securities stack

On November 2, NYSE added Broadridge Financial Solutions, Computershare, Equiniti and Superstate as transfer-agent partners. They joined Securitize and tZERO, bringing the participating transfer-agent group to six.

Broadridge, Computershare and Equiniti provide services to nearly 5,000 listed companies, including approximately 99% of S&P 500 constituents.

Those firms would maintain shareholder records, process ownership changes and support corporate actions associated with securities issued or traded through the proposed system.

In August, ICE reached an agreement with tZERO covering platform development, blockchain patent licensing and an investment in tZERO’s financing round. The agreement joined a broader set of separate trading, transfer-agency and settlement arrangements assembled for regulatory review.

ICE has separately been working with BNY and Citi on tokenized deposits that could help clearing members transfer funds and meet margin requirements outside regular banking hours.

The next gating event is regulatory review: approval would move the proposal from a selected-but-unlaunched architecture to an operating 24/7 market with onchain settlement; without approval, the Avalanche selection would remain non-operational.