Morgan Stanley Delays Tokenized Stock Trading Support to First Quarter of 2027

Morgan Stanley has pushed back its timeline for supporting tokenized stock trading from the second half of this year to the first quarter of 2027.

Amy Oldenburg, the bank’s head of digital asset strategy, said at the Token2049 event in Singapore that support for trading tokenized stocks through an alternative trading system, or ATS, could be available in the first quarter of 2027, The Block reported on October 12. That is later than the second-half 2026 timeline she laid out in March.

Oldenburg said Morgan Stanley is still building the necessary infrastructure, but there are not yet enough tokenized stock products available for trading. “To support trading on an ATS, you first need products,” she said. “Those products don’t really exist yet, so customer demand has not formed either.” The comments suggest the market needs more time before broader adoption can take hold.

Still, she said participation could broaden once the institutional framework is in place. Oldenburg pointed to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.’s planned tokenization service launch later in October as a key turning point. She also cited the GENIUS Act, which is set to take effect in January 2027, as another factor that could influence financial institutions’ expansion into digital assets.

Regulatory uncertainty remains a hurdle. Oldenburg said the failure of the CLARITY Act to pass has left some rules unclear for traditional financial institutions seeking to enter blockchain markets. Whether the Federal Reserve permits such activity will also be a key factor, she added. More important than the bill’s failure itself, she said, is clarifying the regulatory requirements that would apply to financial institutions.

Morgan Stanley plans to expand the business in a way that supports both traditional financial products and blockchain-based assets. An ATS is a trading system that matches buy and sell orders outside formal exchanges such as Nasdaq. Oldenburg said support for tokenized stocks is an extension of the firm’s existing model of offering equities, derivatives and swaps. The goal is to meet demand from clients seeking to use both traditional financial markets and on-chain markets.