Tokenization platform Securitize rallied on its New York Stock Exchange debut on Thursday, as it brought tokenized versions of its shares to two blockchains.
The company, which is backed by BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, began trading on the NYSE under the ticker SECZ on Thursday after merging with a Cantor Fitzgerald-backed special-purpose acquisition company to take it public.
Securitize said Thursday that it simultaneously launched tokenized versions of its shares on the Avalanche and Solana blockchains, which will be available to eligible US investors on its platform.
It marks the first time a newly public company has also offered tokenized stocks, an area of crypto technology that has quickly gained attention among major institutions drawn to the idea that it can bring deeper liquidity and longer trading hours.
Securitize has carved out a lead in the tokenization space for institutions. It partnered with the NYSE in March to create tokenized assets for the exchange’s upcoming tokenized securities platform.
US laws allow for tokenized stocks, Securitize says
Securitize said that tokenizing its stock demonstrates that tokenized securities “can be issued and accessed in the US under existing securities laws and market structure,” adding that access will be subject to onboarding, eligibility, and customer ID and money-laundering checks.
“We have long said that public equities are moving on-chain, and there is no stronger validation of that belief than tokenizing our own public stock on Day 1,” said Securitize co-founder and CEO Carlos Domingo.
“SECZ is not a synthetic token or offshore wrapper. It is issuer-sponsored tokenization of the same common stock trading on the NYSE, made available through regulated infrastructure,” he added. “This is how tokenization should scale: with real ownership, regulatory clarity and the issuer at the center.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission clarified in January that issuer-sponsored tokenized securities are still subject to US securities laws.
In mid-May, the SEC was reportedly ready to announce an exemption for the trading of tokenized stocks, but delayed the plan later that month after stock exchange officials raised concerns over how it would be implemented.
Securitize shares rise on debut
Shares in Securitize (SECZ) hit a high of $13.70 in trading Thursday but retracted slightly and ended the day at $12.30, a gain of 4.4%. The share price continued to climb 2.4% after-hours to $12.60.
Securitize ended its debut trading day on Thursday at a gain of nearly 4.5%. Source: Google Finance
Securitize raised $400 million from its public offering at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
The market for tokenized real-world assets currently exceeds $43 billion, the majority of which is tokenized money market funds, while tokenized commodities account for nearly $7 billion and tokenized stocks account for $1.6 billion, according to Token Terminal.
Analysts expect the tokenization market to grow quickly in the coming years, with Citigroup predicting last month that it could grow to between $5.5 trillion and $8.2 trillion by 2030.
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