The New York Stock Exchange and crypto exchange Blockchain.com have signed a memorandum of understanding to bring tokenized stocks to market.

According to a Wednesday statement, if approved, Blockchain.com users would be able to trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds on NYSE's planned digital alternative trading system. Tokenized stocks are blockchain-based representations of traditional shares, while alternative trading systems are venues where buyers and sellers can transact outside the structure of a formal exchange.

The agreement comes as Wall Street shows increasing interest in Bitcoin and its related infrastructure. NYSE's parent company, Intercontinental Exchange, announced earlier this year that it had invested in crypto exchange OKX.

"People shouldn't be limited in owning stocks based on where they happen to live or the brokerage and information they may or may not have access to," said Peter Smith, Blockchain.com's executive chairman and CEO. "Connecting to the NYSE digital alternative trading system will enable us to extend the opportunity to invest in these digital assets to tens of millions of Blockchain.com users around the world."

NYSE Group President Lynn Martin added: "The future of capital markets belongs to institutions that unite the trust of traditional finance with the innovation and accessibility of digital assets."

In January, the NYSE said it was building a platform that would allow traders to buy and sell tokenized versions of U.S.-listed equities and exchange-traded funds and settle those trades on the blockchain, 24/7, rather than only during the fixed daytime sessions of traditional equity markets.

Wall Street has been courting crypto companies and their infrastructure, driven in large part by interest in tokenizing assets such as stocks. Tokenization, the practice of representing assets as blockchain-based tokens, has emerged as a major point of overlap between traditional finance and crypto. Traditional finance heavyweights like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have used blockchain rails to tokenize money market funds for years.

Momentum has accelerated since the U.S. elected pro-crypto president Donald Trump and regulators adopted a more accommodating stance toward overseeing the space. Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved tokenized stocks trading.

In January, the S&P 500 gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, giving traders the ability to trade the stock index around the clock.

And last month, Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, and fintech firm SoFi Technologies announced a deal to route SoFi customers' crypto orders through Kraken's institutional trading platform and list SoFi's stablecoin on the exchange.

This post, NYSE and Blockchain.com Working Together To List Tokenized Stocks, first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.