Formation Securities Plans Tokenized Stock Venue on Solana

Formation Securities, a new tokenized securities venue that licenses trading technology from Solana (CRYPTO: $SOL) exchange Orca, notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that it intends to open a venue on Solana for around-the-clock trading of tokenized U.S. stocks, with trading expected to begin in early 2027.

It is the first venue to announce plans to operate on Solana under the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, which was released in September. The announcement also comes as dozens of public companies push back against having their shares tokenized without their consent. Formation says it intends to build its market together with the issuers whose shares it lists.

According to the press release, the conditional exemption allows secondary trading of eligible tokenized stocks through permissioned automated market maker liquidity pools on qualifying venues, provided the tokens carry the same voting, dividend and other rights as traditional shares. Verified investors would hold the tokens in their own wallets and trade them around the clock against stablecoins and other eligible assets, with each trade settling onchain. Companies’ transfer agents would continue to keep the official shareholder record.

Tokenized shares of Exodus Movement (NYSE: $EXOD), Forward Industries (NASDAQ: $FWDI) and Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: $GLXY) are anticipated to be available at launch. Superstate and Securitize (NYSE: $SECZ) are expected to supply tokenized shares for the venue. Investors would reach it through the Formation platform, the brokerage Alpaca, CoinList’s Passage, custodians Anchorage Digital Bank, BitGo Bank & Trust and Fireblocks, Jito’s JTX trading interface, and Solflare and Squads wallets.

Formation President Christopher Montagano said tokenized stocks will succeed only if public companies see the value in them, adding that the venue is designed to offer trading beyond traditional market hours and faster onchain settlement while preserving shareholder rights. Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said each of the company’s Convertible Entitlement Tokens is backed by a real share held by its broker-dealer, carries the same rights as that share, and is held only by verified investors. Superstate co-founder and CEO Robert Leshner called the plan “a huge step for public markets.”

The venue will operate under the exemption’s conditions, which include limits on listed securities and trading volume, mandatory public disclosures and customer diligence requirements. Venues must also notify issuers in writing and wait at least 30 calendar days before trading shares tokenized by unaffiliated third parties. More than 50 companies had objected as of early November to having their shares tokenized on OKX and Intercontinental Exchange’s proposed venue, and Nasdaq warned in September that tokenized trading could have unforeseen effects on liquidity and price discovery.

Solana held about $575 million in tokenized stock value on Monday, compared with $747 million on Ethereum and $1.7 billion on BNB Chain, according to RWA.xyz data. Formation, which launches with service providers Predicate, Sec3, Solidus Labs and TRM Labs, builds on Project Open, an April 2025 proposal to the SEC by Orca, Superstate and the Solana Policy Institute.