Nasdaq's Adena Friedman says tokenization could free tens of billions tied up as collateral, but 24/7 markets mean 'real time all the time'

Nasdaq chief executive Adena Friedman says tokenization could free up tens of billions of dollars now tied up as collateral across the global financial system. She made the case to CNBC's Joanna Ossinger at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, in an interview the network published on Friday, October 9.

Her argument is that if Treasurys, stocks and money market funds are tokenized along with the money that moves between them, collateral becomes far easier to shift. She said institutional interest has grown over the past year, helped in part by the Genius Act, the US law that set rules for stablecoins. Retail investors, in her view, have been about 10 years ahead in wanting round-the-clock trading.

The hard part is not the exchange, which she called the easiest piece. Financial institutions have traditionally used the periods when markets are closed to update systems and manage risk. "Everything has to be real time all the time," Friedman said. She said AI is critical to making that work, and that Nasdaq has launched digital agents in its risk management platform that, to begin with, make recommendations. She also cautioned that not every asset is liquid enough to trade 24/7.

Nasdaq is putting money behind the idea. On September 10 it said its venture arm would invest $100 million in Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, and that it expects to launch Nasdaq Equity Tokens in the second quarter of 2027.