Ava Labs said on November 9, 2026, that Avalanche will provide the core ledger technology for the clearing firm behind a planned New York Stock Exchange-affiliated tokenized securities venue. Stocks on the venue could be issued on several blockchains, while the clearing firm would use Avalanche to record and settle their trades.
The clearing firm gives Avalanche the central job
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the NYSE’s parent, described the venue in its January 2026 platform announcement. The design calls for round-the-clock trading, immediate settlement and stablecoin funding.
Avalanche will support the platform’s clearing firm, supporting the development of infrastructure for 24/7 trading, clearing, and settlement.
Avalanche statement
Issuance and settlement are separate steps. An issuer could create a tokenized share on a supported blockchain; when that share trades, the clearing firm would use its Avalanche ledger to record and settle the transaction. Avalanche’s assigned role is therefore at the clearing firm, regardless of which supported chain holds the share.
Dennis Lee, the NYSE’s head of digital issuance, described the approach as “picking the right technology for each job.” He said the ledger that records and settles trades needs speed and reliability, as well as control over who can participate. That last requirement applies to the clearing process, where access to the ledger must be managed.
How the proposed venue reached this point
- January 2026: The NYSE announced plans for tokenized securities trading with immediate settlement and stablecoin funding.
- September 2026: ICE and NYSE had spent roughly a year testing Avalanche, including performance and compatibility with existing exchange systems.
- November 9, 2026: Ava Labs identified Avalanche as the planned core ledger for the venue’s clearing firm.
Ava Labs President Charley Cooper said the tests examined compatibility with Pillar, the NYSE matching engine that pairs buy and sell orders. That test addresses a specific connection: trades matched by an existing exchange system would need to reach the ledger used by the clearing firm. ICE executives also pointed to Avalanche’s performance, interoperability and compliance-oriented custom subnets in the September evaluations.
Issuers can use other chains while clearing stays on Avalanche
The design gives issuers a choice of supported chains for creating eligible tokenized equities. A share issued on one of those chains would still pass through the venue’s clearing process when traded. That split lets the NYSE choose a ledger for settlement without requiring every issuer to use it for issuance.
Transfer agents handle a different part of the process. Broadridge and Computershare had joined the planned venue by November 2026, with roles involving shareholder records and on-chain governance. Their work concerns the records of who holds a security and how holder rights are handled, which sit alongside the trade records kept by the clearing firm.
For a trader, the chain holding a tokenized share and the ledger settling its sale serve different purposes. The first holds the issued security; the second records the completed trade. Participation also depends on the venue’s rules and on which securities it makes available.
Approval decides when the infrastructure can matter
ICE’s design combines a ledger for clearing with trading that runs around the clock. Immediate settlement would record a trade when it completes, while stablecoin funding would provide a digital payment method for transactions on the venue. These features define how the proposed venue would handle the time between an order being matched and its settlement.
The plan assigns each participant a distinct task: issuers create securities, transfer agents maintain shareholder records, and the clearing firm records and settles trades. Avalanche’s selection concerns that final task. SEC approval is required, and the announcements give no firm launch date or final list of securities for the venue.
