Avalanche's AVAX token rallied as much as 10% on Monday, making it the best performer among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, after the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced plans to use its blockchain to settle trades on a new platform for trading tokenized stocks around the clock.

The token later eased to $8.86, still up more than 8% on the day, according to CoinGecko data as of 03:22 p.m. UTC. AVAX is the native token of the Avalanche blockchain, and its market capitalization stood at roughly $3.95 billion, with $439.7 million traded over the past day. The Avalanche blockchain's total value locked (TVL) — the combined value of assets deposited in decentralized finance applications on the network — reached $633 million, a 4% increase over the past 24 hours, according to DeFiLlama.

"At the NYSE, we're looking at how blockchain technology can expand what we offer in equities, and we're picking the right technology for each job," Dennis Lee, head of digital issuance at NYSE, said in an announcement.

The deal underscores a broader push by Wall Street firms to use blockchain technology to speed up stock trading and extend investing beyond regular market hours. Traditional US equity markets are typically open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST on weekdays, with trades often taking at least one business day to settle, the process by which a transaction is finalized and ownership of the shares officially changes hands.

The NYSE, the world's largest stock exchange by the market value of its listed companies, first unveiled plans for the platform in January. In September, Ava Labs revealed that the exchange had spent roughly a year testing Avalanche, though the blockchain's final selection was not confirmed until Monday.

Related: Aave launches V4 on Avalanche, laying groundwork for tokenized credit markets

NYSE chooses Avalanche

Ava Labs said the NYSE will use Avalanche's blockchain to track stock trades and help complete transactions on its planned trading platform. The venue will let investors buy and sell digital versions of stocks across different blockchains, with Avalanche used to record those trades and ensure transactions are completed.

"The upcoming digital trading platform will support equities listed on a range of blockchains, though the ledger that records and settles trades needs to be fast and reliable, let us control who can take part, keep costs predictable, and have a large community of developers behind it. Avalanche meets all those needs," Lee said.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the platform could launch before the end of 2026, pending regulatory approval.

"Our first conversations with the NYSE team began nearly a year ago, and it's remarkable how quickly we've progressed toward supporting this infrastructure," John Nahas, chief business officer at Ava Labs, told Cointelegraph. "It's an important step toward blockchain becoming foundational financial infrastructure."

Wall Street dives into tokenized stocks

The announcement comes as other major financial firms also invest in blockchain technology to make stock trading faster and available around the clock.

In September, Nasdaq announced plans to invest $100 million in Kraken's parent company, Payward, to launch tokenized stocks, with that project expected to go live in the second quarter of 2027.

Meanwhile, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which helps settle US securities trades, launched a service in October that allows financial firms to convert traditional securities into digital tokens.

"Today marks the culmination of years of work to bring tokenized securities into a regulated framework supported by trusted market infrastructure," Frank La Salla, CEO of DTCC, said at the time. "By extending DTC's resiliency, governance and operational standards into digital markets, we are establishing the foundation for responsible institutional adoption at scale."

The NYSE deal also follows other efforts by financial firms to bring traditional financial assets specifically onto Avalanche. In July, Japanese financial technology company Progmat announced it had moved more than 452 billion yen worth of digital securities onto a dedicated Avalanche blockchain. And in September, Aave Labs announced plans to launch a lending service on Avalanche that would let financial firms borrow Tether's USAT stablecoin using tokenized assets as collateral.