Formation Securities LLC has notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of its intention to operate a tokenized stock trading venue built on the Solana blockchain, with trading targeted to begin in early 2027. The company plans to let investors buy and sell tokenized shares of real public companies on-chain under a formal regulatory framework adopted by the SEC weeks earlier.

Formation filed its notice with the SEC on November 9, 2026, according to the company’s announcement. The venue would support permissioned trading of tokenized versions of stocks listed on traditional U.S. exchanges, with Solana serving as the underlying blockchain infrastructure. Formation says settlement would occur within seconds at a fraction of a cent per transaction. By comparison, trades in U.S. stocks have settled on a T+1 basis — one business day after execution — since the SEC shortened the standard settlement cycle from two days in May 2024.

A regulated venue for tokenized shares

Formation would operate under the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, a five-year conditional framework that permits regulated secondary trading of tokenized stocks through automated market makers, or AMMs. These programs set prices and match trades automatically rather than relying on a conventional order book.

The company’s initial listings are expected to include three public companies: Exodus Movement (EXOD), Forward Industries (FWDI), and Galaxy Digital (GLXY). Formation says it has already secured consent from each issuer.

A tokenized stock is a digital token on a blockchain that represents ownership of a real share in a publicly traded company. It is not a separate crypto asset. According to Formation’s announcement, each token would be backed 1:1 by an underlying share, and holders would retain the same shareholder rights, including voting and dividend rights.

Formation’s platform will use an AMM implemented through smart contracts. These automated blockchain programs hold pools of tokens and determine trade prices without a traditional order book. According to the company, Formation licenses the technology from Orca, a Solana-based decentralized exchange whose AMM had processed more than $550 billion in digital-asset trades as of October 31, 2026.

Formation itself was created through a merger of Orca and Loopscale. Its president, Christopher Montagano, previously served as Orca’s chief legal officer.

Trading on the planned platform would be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar and digital wallets. Regular sessions on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq run from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time on weekdays, so around-the-clock trading would extend tokenized share transactions into evenings and weekends when those markets are closed. The venue would halt trading whenever the primary exchange halted trading in the underlying stock, keeping the tokenized market aligned with traditional markets.

Superstate and Securitize would handle tokenization of the initial shares, according to Formation’s announcement. Custody of the underlying securities would be managed by Anchorage Digital Bank, BitGo Bank and Trust, and Fireblocks. Under this structure, the actual shares backing the tokens would be held by the named custody providers rather than in a smart contract.

Formation’s distribution partners include Alpaca, Passage by CoinList, Solflare, Squads, and Jito JTX.

Issuer consent and Solana trading activity

Formation’s initial issuer lineup reflects a strategy of securing company approval before launch. Exodus Movement, which trades as EXOD on the NYSE; Forward Industries, which trades as FWDI on Nasdaq; and Galaxy Digital, which trades as GLXY on Nasdaq, had already tokenized their shares through Superstate or Securitize before Formation’s announcement.

Securing consent in advance is significant because the SEC framework requires issuers to have an opportunity to object before a third party tokenizes their shares. Other tokenized-stock projects have faced issuer opposition that limited their initial listings.

According to CoinDesk reporting, Solana held a relatively modest share of the $3.8 billion tokenized-stock market but led all blockchains in weekly tokenized-stock trading volume at more than $7 billion during one recent week. The figures show a difference between the value of assets held on a blockchain and the volume traded there, with Solana recording the higher reported weekly trading activity despite its smaller share of assets held.

SEC Innovation Exemption

Formation’s operations fall under the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, formally issued on September 17, 2026, as Release No. 2026-90. The exemption gives Tokenized Securities Venues a five-year conditional period in which to operate without registering as a formal securities exchange under the Exchange Act. It runs through September 17, 2031, and the SEC describes it as a temporary sandbox “on the road to permanent rules.”

The SEC’s release sets several conditions. Smart contracts must be auditable and deployed on public, permissionless blockchains. Tokenized shares must carry the same rights as traditional shares, and trading must pause whenever the primary exchange halts the underlying stock. The requirements apply market-structure and investor-protection principles associated with traditional securities markets to blockchain-based trading. The release also sought public comment on the framework as the agency works toward permanent rules.

According to SEC records, Formation is the fourth firm to file a TSV notice under the exemption. It follows TSV LLC on September 23, OKXICE on October 4, and Perpetuals.com on October 14, 2026. TSV LLC executed the first live trades under the exemption on November 4, 2026, on the Canton Network, providing the first real-world test of the framework before Formation filed its notice.

Formation’s plan is part of a broader regulatory effort by the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to establish a five-year path for tokenized U.S. stocks within a structured and supervised framework.

Securities expert Brett W. Redfearn described the Innovation Exemption as a thoughtfully constructed step toward a workable framework for trading tokenized U.S. securities through automated market makers and liquidity pools for U.S. investors.

Robert Leshner, the CEO of tokenization partner Superstate, said in Formation’s announcement: “This is the moment we’ve been building toward since we started Superstate.”

Origins and next steps

Formation’s origins trace back to “Project Open,” a coalition proposal submitted in April 2025 by Orca, Superstate, and the Solana Policy Institute to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force. The proposal outlined a model for regulated, on-chain stock trading of the type Formation is now preparing to launch.

Formation’s planned venue would test whether blockchain-based securities trading can operate within the existing regulatory system. If the platform launches as planned in early 2027 and complies with the SEC’s conditions, it would provide a regulated venue where a broader range of stocks could trade on-chain around the clock through digital wallets rather than traditional brokerage accounts. Coinbase’s parallel effort to list tokenized shares of major companies indicates that multiple approaches to regulated tokenized equities are advancing at the same time.

The company’s announcement is available through PR Newswire.