Hi, it’s Marc. ✌️
We sat down with Michael Blaugrund, the man bridging the world’s most important equity market, the NYSE, on-chain. The platform goes live later in 2026. It’s the biggest change to capital market since electronic trading.
“Irrespective of where crypto asset prices are, the infrastructure momentum at this point is unstoppable.”
All US equities on-chain by 2030? Michael thinks not quite. By 2035? He’s betting yes.
“For a crypto-native investor, the idea of markets being unavailable or the inability to get your funds out at any given moment is a bug, not a feature.”
As the former COO of the New York Stock Exchange and now VP of Strategic Initiatives at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Michael ran all seven of NYSE's exchanges through the pandemic, the meme stock frenzy, and the shift to electronic-only trading. He testified before the US House Financial Services Committee in 2021 following the GameStop saga.
If you’re a bank, an asset manager, or a broker still waiting for “clarity” before acting on tokenization, here’s Michael’s advice:
“You better find another industry. It’s just not going to be a sustainable worldview.”
Today, he’s building ICE’s on-chain future. And this isn’t ICE’s first move:
The firm quietly invested in Coinbase in its early rounds,
launched the digital custodian Bakkt,
helped bring Bitcoin ETFs to market through the NYSE Arca platform,
put $2 billion into Polymarket at an $8 billion valuation, one of the largest investments by any traditional exchange in the crypto space,
partnered with BNY and Citi on tokenized deposits across six clearinghouses,
joined LayerZero's Zero blockchain initiative alongside Citadel Securities, DTCC, Google Cloud, and ARK Invest
And yesterday, it invested in one of the biggest crypto exchanges on the planet: OKX, valued at $25 billion.
In short: ICE has been watching this space for over a decade. Now it's moving it into the core of the business, and Michael is steering the wheel.
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About this episode: We get into what the NYSE’s 24/7 tokenized trading venue actually means, why the real transformation isn’t the trading platform but the collateral infrastructure, what ICE sees in Polymarket, and why Michael thinks the shift will be slow until it’s suddenly very fast.
🎧 Jump to the best parts
00:00 The Future of Trading: Tokenization at NYSE
01:16 Challenges in Equity Markets and Solutions through Tokenization
08:46 Understanding NYSE's Tokenization Platform
14:59 Layer Zero and Blockchain Innovations
21:15 Decentralization vs. Regulation in Blockchain
23:39 Tokenizing US Treasuries vs. Equities
26:01 The Role of DeFi in Future Markets
28:31 Transformative Potential of Tokenized Deposits
32:54 Investing in Prediction Markets: The Polymarket Case
35:24 Looking Ahead: ICE's Strategic Focus
37:04 Preparing for the Future of Capital Markets
Important Links
NYSE: https://nyse.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelblaugrund/
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