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To investors,
The crypto industry has long pitched their work as an alternative financial system that would eventually disrupt the legacy system. At the same time, industry leaders have been obsessed with institutional adoption of bitcoin, stablecoins, and other assets or products.
Careful what you wish for though.
Wall Street is full of sharks. These people are intelligent, hardworking indviduals who have nearly unlimited resources. They aren’t going to sit around while a bunch of nerds online ruin their business. There is too much at stake, so the incumbents aren’t going to die quietly.
The latest example is the New York Stock Exchange. Yesterday they “announced its development of a platform for trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities, for which it will seek regulatory approvals.”
This is obviously a really big deal. Here are the specific details from the press release:
“NYSE’s new digital platform will enable tokenized trading experiences, including 24/7 operations, instant settlement, orders sized in dollar amounts, and stablecoin-based funding. Its design combines the NYSE’s cutting-edge Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade systems, including the capability to support multiple chains for settlement and custody.
Subject to regulatory approvals, the platform will power a new NYSE venue that supports trading of tokenized shares fungible with traditionally issued securities as well as tokens natively issued as digital securities. Tokenized shareholders will participate in traditional shareholder dividends and governance rights. The venue is designed to align with established principles for market structure, with distribution via non-discriminatory access to all qualified broker-dealers.
The launch of the NYSE’s tokenized securities platform is one component of ICE’s broader digital strategy, which includes preparing its clearing infrastructure to support 24/7 trading and the potential integration of tokenized collateral. ICE is now working with banks including BNY (NYSE: BK) and Citi (NYSE: C) to support tokenized deposits across ICE’s clearinghouses to help clearing members transfer and manage money outside of traditional banking hours, meet margin obligations, and accommodate funding requirements over different jurisdictions and time zones.”
Most of the coverage of this announcement is focused on the NYSE pushing further into the crypto industry. But people should have already seen that coming. When NYSE’s parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced their $2 billion investment in Polymarket, ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said it was a strategic move to get ahead of tokenization and decentralized finance.
These incumbents are not asleep at the wheel. They have navigated the launch of the internet, the cloud, high-frequency trading, and mobile. Through all the innovation cycles, the New York Stock Exchange is still one of the dominant stock exchanges in the world.
The most interesting part of the announcement yesterday was HOW the New York Stock Exchange is planning to address the threat and opportunity from crypto. The NYSE approach is not to evolve their current exchange, but rather to build a completely new system side-by-side with the existing product.
Simon Taylor explained this approach well:
“NYSE will run two exchanges. The old one: 9:30-4:00 EST, T+1 settlement, bank wires. The new one: 24/7, instant settlement, stablecoin rails. They’re not choosing between traditional and digital. They’re operating both in parallel.”
There is risk to this strategy. Mainly, it is hard enough to operate one exchange well, but ICE is uniquely positioned to run multiple exchanges because they already do that.
More importantly, this move by ICE is exactly how you solve the innovator’s dilemma. Rather than be faced with a situation where you have to give up your legacy business on the unproven potential of a new thing, ICE and NYSE are essentially saying they will continue to ride the legacy industry dominance to help fund the R&D for the future opportunity.
Let’s use the idea of tokenization as an example. Most people think about tokenizing legacy assets. They saw dollars get tokenized as stablecoins, so now the incumbents are racing to tokenize bonds, private equity, and traditional stocks. Any asset in the legacy system can just be put on a blockchain with a corresponding token, right?
No one knows yet.
NYSE acknowledges that traditional stocks could get tokenized over time and stablecoins can be used to fund an investor’s account, yet they explicitly call out the new platform for being able to handle digital-native assets that have never touched the legacy system.
This means the US exchange understands that we are not watching a mere evolution of technology. They seem to recognize that a finance revolution is underway.
The way to win is to keep one foot in the old world and race to build a dominant position in the new world. Buy a stake in one of the leading prediction markets. Build a disruptive platform for tokenized stocks and trading. And let the people decide which system will ultimately be the winner over time. NYSE doesn’t necessarily care because they have a bet on both outcomes.
Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to you next time.
- Anthony J. Pompliano
Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management
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Will A.I. Make Bitcoin More Valuable Than Ever?
Jordi Visser is a veteran macro investor with over 30 years of market experience and the author of the VisserLabs Substack.
In this conversation, we break down bitcoin’s role in a deflationary world, inflation, Fed monetary policy, and the scrutiny around Jerome Powell. We also explore how AI is reshaping productivity and healthcare, the rise of humanoid robots, and what it all means for markets.
Enjoy!
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Sentiment can change very fast and this shows it.
$bkkt is in on this one