This time it's different. The giants of traditional finance are finally making a big move, not just small experiments or testing the waters, but determined to get serious in the crypto ecosystem.

In mid-January, the New York Stock Exchange officially announced the launch of a tokenized securities trading and settlement platform project. Once the news broke, the entire financial industry was shaken. This is not a fringe experiment; it’s a comprehensive embrace of blockchain technology by the world’s top securities exchange.

Imagine the scene from a different perspective: on a weekend afternoon, you buy a tokenized version of Apple stock on your phone, and immediately afterward, you can use it to exchange for Tesla tokens—both can pay dividends and have voting rights. This is the new way the NYSE is planning to open up for everyone. Having worked in the crypto industry for many years doing analysis, I can clearly feel—this time, it’s truly different.

**What does this platform look like?**

Its technical architecture is a hybrid:
- The front end still uses the mature Pillar matching engine from the NYSE (capable of processing millions of orders per second),
- The settlement process is directly moved onto the blockchain, making delivery lightning-fast.

The core features are similar to operations in the crypto space:
- 24/7 trading: no longer limited by US stock market hours
- T+0 instant settlement: transactions settle immediately upon completion, saying goodbye to the current T+1 waiting period
- Stablecoin settlement: payments made with tokens pegged to the US dollar
- Fractional shares: you can even buy high-priced stocks like Berkshire Hathaway in fractions as small as 0.001 shares

Most importantly: these tokens represent actual ownership on the issuer’s ledger, enjoying full shareholder rights. This is completely different from the "middleman" tokens in the current crypto space that are structured through SPV arrangements.