Nasdaq advances equity token model for U.S. capital markets

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Nasdaq equity token model

Highlights

Nasdaq is advancing an issuer-sponsored equity token model called Nasdaq Equity Token (NET), filed with the SEC in September 2025 and announced in March 2026.
Under the proposed framework, transferring a token will equate to transferring the underlying security, integrating blockchain records into the issuer's official share registry to ensure regulatory equivalence.
Nasdaq emphasizes standardization, interoperability, and issuer choice to enable programmable workflows and operational efficiencies without fragmenting the U.S. equity market structure.

Tokenization framework and Nasdaq's market design

As outlined by Nasdaq, tokenization refers to representing a security on a blockchain rather than through conventional electronic book-entry records. The exchange operator presents the concept as part of a broader modernization of market infrastructure, as trading, information and risk increasingly move continuously across global markets while core systems still rely on fixed operating windows.

Nasdaq describes three main models for tokenized securities. In a custodial model, a third party holds the underlying asset and issues a token tied to that ownership interest. In a synthetic model, the token tracks the performance of a security without conveying direct ownership. The third approach, which Nasdaq is pursuing, centers on issuer-sponsored equity tokens that are fungible with the underlying security and can fit into existing institutional and retail workflows.

The company says this framework underpins its Nasdaq Equity Token, or NET, design. In March 2026, Nasdaq announced work on an equity token structure that puts public companies at the center of ownership rights, investor experience, transparency and governance, building on a tokenization proposal it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in September 2025.

Implications for issuers and market operations

Under Nasdaq's design, a transfer of the token would also constitute a transfer of the underlying security, preserving legal and regulatory equivalence between the digital representation and the share itself. Blockchain records would be integrated into the issuer's official share registry, creating what Nasdaq describes as a regulated link between on-chain records and off-chain identity while maintaining price discovery, liquidity and investor protections in U.S. equity markets.

Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman says the approach is intended to give issuers a choice over whether their securities are tokenized and more control over how they understand and engage with investors. The company also argues that standardization and interoperability are central to wider adoption, allowing tokenized equities to support programmable, automated workflows without creating bespoke structures that could add complexity or fragment the market.

For capital markets, the proposal reflects a push to adapt existing regulated structures to always-on environments rather than replace them outright. Nasdaq positions tokenization as a way to unlock operational efficiencies and modernize functions such as ownership tracking and proxy processes while keeping public market safeguards intact.

Our earlier article covered the launch of JQQQ, a blockchain-native fund introduced by Janus Henderson and Centrifuge that provides digital access to the Nasdaq-100 Index. It also noted that the Nasdaq-100 was trading under short- and medium-term selling pressure, with key technical levels shaping near-term risk, while the new blockchain access route was viewed as a potentially supportive structural development for longer-term institutional participation.

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