Wall Street financial firms have moved beyond the stage of "exploring" blockchain and have entered a phase of full-scale adoption.

Exchanges, clearinghouses and electronic trading platforms that play a core role in global capital markets are entering the onchain (blockchain-based) world one after another.

In this regard, Jason Rosenthal (Jason Rosenthal), an operating partner at a16z Crypto, the crypto investment arm of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), assessed recent Wall Street moves as "the biggest infrastructure upgrade in capital markets since the shift to electronic trading 30 years ago."

In a post shared on the firm's website, he added, "Financial companies moving toward crypto all believe onchain infrastructure will significantly increase the velocity of money. What that result is can be clearly seen by looking at history."

According to him, before ECNs (Electronic Communication Networks) and online brokerages emerged, it took several minutes to execute a single trade. Spreads were quoted in fractions. For example, they were set at $0.125, leaving brokers with profits of that scale. Access was also limited by region and the size of capital.

When the era of electronic trading arrived, spreads collapsed. He said, "Commissions fell from $150 to $9.95, and eventually to 0. Trading volume and the number of retail participants surged. Markets in the 2000s were completely different from those in the 1990s. It did not just get cheaper; the scale itself grew."

Rosenthal believes tokenisation has the potential to apply this logic to global finance as a whole.

Tokenised assets are digital representations of real-world assets such as Treasury bonds, Apple shares and real estate titles recorded on a blockchain as programmable tokens. They can be transferred anywhere at any time, programmed and settled instantly.

He said, "A 24/7 market, instant settlement, borderless distribution, splitting assets that were previously tied up behind high minimum thresholds, and collateral that moves in real time instead of being tied up overnight. Speed will increase, participation will grow, and the pie will get bigger."

Institutions are already moving. In December 2025, DTCC received a No-Action Letter from the SEC that allows the tokenisation of real-world assets on an approved blockchain. DTCC processed $370 quadrillion of transactions in 2024 and is aiming to formally launch a U.S. Treasury tokenisation service in the first half of 2026.

On Jan. 19, 2026, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced a platform to trade and settle U.S. stocks and ETFs onchain 24 hours a day. It supports fractional shares, instant settlement and stablecoin funding. NYSE decided to support tokenised deposits across BNY, Citi and ICE clearinghouses.

Rosenthal said he was looking forward to "the world's most iconic stock exchange going onchain."

Tradeweb in August 2025 executed its first transaction to finance U.S. Treasuries in real time in a fully onchain structure, using USDC as collateral outside existing settlement hours.

Rosenthal also cited as another driver of the changes a structure in which gains from trading accrue to the parties rather than intermediaries. He said, "Legacy markets are designed around intermediaries, not markets," adding, "In institutional trading, prime brokers charge funding costs." He stressed, "Smart contracts and atomic settlement break that structure. Now the two counterparties can transact instantly and conclusively onchain." He added, "The margin legacy intermediaries have taken does not disappear. Founders who build the infrastructure can take that place."

Regulation is also moving in a positive direction. He said, "If the current trend continues, the CLARITY Act can do in traditional finance what the Genius Act has done in playing a role in introducing and accelerating stablecoins," adding, "The guidelines the largest institutions needed are already in sight."

If global financial infrastructure moves onchain, new products and services different from the past will be needed. Rosenthal said, "Institutions such as DTCC, NYSE and Tradeweb are moving rapidly onchain, but they do not build everything themselves. They have to buy what sits on top of it from outside, such as middleware, compliance tools and distribution systems. That pattern is no different from when electronic trading emerged in the 1990s."