Formation Securities said it had notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of plans to operate a tokenized securities venue on Solana, targeting trading in early 2027. The filing described a planned market—not an already operating exchange.
According to Decrypt’s original report, published November 10, 2026, at 01:46:02 UTC+08:00, Formation said Monday that it had filed a notice to operate under the SEC’s “Innovation Exemption.” The report describes that exemption, issued in September, as conditional relief allowing eligible tokenized stocks to trade through permissioned automated market maker pools on qualifying venues.
Tokenized shares of Exodus Movement, Forward Industries and Galaxy Digital were anticipated at launch. Their availability and the early-2027 start remained expectations in the report.
The promise: blockchain trading without losing shareholder rights
Formation’s proposition combines 24/7 markets and near-instant settlement with the rights attached to conventional shares. Under the exemption described in the report, eligible tokens must retain the same voting and dividend rights as traditional stock.
Trades would settle atomically onchain, a mechanism intended to reduce settlement risk. A company’s transfer agent would continue to maintain the official shareholder register, while trades would appear on the public ledger in real time. The model therefore retains an established recordkeeper rather than replacing the shareholder register entirely with blockchain records.
Formation licenses its trading technology from Solana-based exchange Orca. Tokenization firms Securitize and Superstate were expected to supply shares. Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said each of his firm’s tokens is backed by a real share held by its broker-dealer.
Permissioned access, not an unrestricted stock market
Access would be limited to verified investors. The reported access channels included Formation’s platform and distributors Alpaca and CoinList’s Passage; custodians Anchorage, BitGo and Fireblocks; and wallet providers Solflare and Squads.
That distinction matters to the narrative: public-ledger trading does not mean unrestricted participation. The proposed venue combines onchain settlement with investor verification, permissioned pools and conventional shareholder-record infrastructure.
Formation president Christopher Montagano also framed issuer participation as essential: “Tokenized stocks will succeed only if public companies see the value in them, and we intend to build this market together with issuers.”
A growing field, with delivery still to be demonstrated
The report placed Formation among several efforts to bring equities onchain. The NYSE had selected Avalanche for settlement on its planned tokenized securities platform, Securitize had launched tokenized stocks on Solana, and an OKX-ICE venue was in development. According to the report, all Magnificent Seven stocks had opted out of the latter venue.
Formation’s effort builds on Project Open, a proposal submitted to the SEC in 2025 by a coalition including Orca, Superstate and the Solana Policy Institute. Formation said it selected Solana for speed, low costs and its tokenized-asset track record, citing more than $5 billion in tokenized real-world assets on the network.
The evidence gap at the time of publication was between a filed notice and a functioning venue. The report established Formation’s plans, proposed infrastructure and expected participants; it did not establish a completed launch or demonstrated investor adoption. The promised trading benefits remained to be tested in operation.