Avalanche Assessed Among NYSE’s Tokenized Stock Platform Options, With No Final Choice
Key Facts
Michael Blaugrund, vice president of strategic initiatives at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), said the Avalanche network meets many of the criteria the company is evaluating for a tokenized securities trading platform, adding that ICE is engaged with the network’s team. The company has not announced that it selected Avalanche, operated by Ava Labs, as the platform’s approved settlement network. The comments come as ICE evaluates blockchain options, while the project’s design still allows for the use of more than one network. Blaugrund said, "Avalanche meets many of our requirements." Ava Labs President Charlie Cooper had said NYSE tested the technology during the previous year, but did not say the exchange had selected it.
The plan announced by NYSE combines its Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade systems, with the capacity to support multiple chains for settlement and custody. That means Avalanche is being assessed within an architecture designed to accommodate more than one network, rather than as part of an announcement that it has been adopted exclusively. The platform is intended for trading tokenized securities and is expected to begin after regulatory approvals. These include tokens held by a custodian, as well as issuer-sponsored tokenized securities. NYSE says holders of tokenized shares will have the same distribution and governance rights as holders of traditional shares.
On 2 November 2026, NYSE announced agreements with Broadridge Financial Solutions, Computershare, Equiniti and Superstate, following earlier agreements with Securitize and tZERO. The exchange says Computershare, Equiniti and Broadridge have expertise in transfer-agent services and longstanding relationships with issuers. The three companies serve nearly 5,000 listed companies, including nearly 99% of S&P 500 companies, according to NYSE. The partnerships connect the tokenization project to issuer and transfer-agent services, alongside the technology infrastructure for trading and settlement. The platform’s launch remains subject to regulatory approval.
The terms of the temporary exemption issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) set conditions for tokenized stock trading platforms, including limits on the number of tokens and trading volume. Traded tokens must also grant holders the same rights and privileges as holders of traditional shares of the equivalent class. The SEC requires smart contracts to be auditable, public and published on a public, permissionless distributed ledger. The platform must also halt trading in a token whenever trading in the underlying stock is halted on its primary listing exchange. SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said the exemption allows the agency to develop its understanding of how these platforms operate in support of future policymaking.
The temporary exemptions expire 5 years after publication of the order, while the SEC has requested public comment on potential amendments and next steps. Under agency staff guidance published in October 2026, a platform must publish a public operating notice at least 30 calendar days before beginning operations. A platform cannot make a third-party tokenized stock available if it receives a qualifying objection from the issuer. Regulatory approval remains a condition for the launch of the NYSE platform, and the available information did not give a start date. The continuous-trading initiative comes amid growing interest in trading outside regular market hours; Nasdaq was seeking approval to trade stocks 23 hours a day, five days a week, Reuters reported in January 2026.