Formation Securities has notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of its intent to operate a tokenized securities venue on Solana, positioning the firm to become one of the first to trade tokenized U.S. stocks onchain. Tokenized stocks are blockchain representations of company shares.

In a Monday announcement, the company said it filed the notice to operate under the SEC's “Innovation Exemption,” the conditional relief the agency issued in September that allows eligible tokenized stocks to trade through permissioned automated market maker pools on qualifying venues. In those pools, prices are set by pooled onchain liquidity rather than a conventional order book. Trading is expected to begin in early 2027, with tokenized shares of Exodus Movement, Forward Industries and Galaxy Digital anticipated at launch.

The venue is designed to deliver the benefits of blockchain trading — around-the-clock markets and near-instant settlement — without stripping away the rights investors expect from conventional stock. Both features diverge from standard U.S. equity infrastructure, where trading centers on set daytime hours and settlement follows a next-business-day (T+1) cycle. Under the exemption, eligible tokens must carry the same voting and dividend rights as traditional shares, and every trade settles atomically onchain, with both sides of a transaction finalizing simultaneously — a feature intended to reduce settlement risk. A company's transfer agent retains the official shareholder record, while each transaction posts to the public ledger in real time.

“Tokenized stocks will succeed only if public companies see the value in them, and we intend to build this market together with issuers,” said Christopher Montagano, president of Formation Securities, which licenses its trading technology from Solana-based exchange Orca.

Tokenization firms Securitize and Superstate are expected to supply tokenized shares. Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo noted that its tokens are each backed by a real share held by its broker-dealer.

Access will be limited to verified investors, who can reach the venue through Formation's own platform as well as distributors including Alpaca and CoinList's Passage, custodians Anchorage, BitGo and Fireblocks, and wallet providers Solflare and Squads.

The filing adds another entrant to a fast-crowding race to put stocks onchain, one that now spans legacy exchanges, crypto-native firms and market infrastructure providers. The NYSE recently tapped Solana rival Avalanche to settle its own planned tokenized securities platform, Securitize has launched tokenized stocks on Solana, and an OKX-ICE venue is also in the works — though every Magnificent Seven stock opted out of that one.

The effort builds on Project Open, a proposal submitted to the SEC in 2025 by a coalition that included Orca, Superstate and the Solana Policy Institute.

Formation said it chose Solana for its speed, low costs and track record with tokenized assets, noting that the network hosts more than $5 billion in tokenized real-world assets. With Formation positioning to be among the first venues under the September exemption, the SEC's response to the notice and any additions to the initial issuer lineup ahead of the targeted early-2027 launch will be milestones to watch.