Formation targets early 2027 for tokenized stock venue on Solana

By Elena Vasquez

Formation Securities has notified the SEC of plans to launch a Solana-based tokenized-securities venue in early 2027, with tokenized shares of Exodus Movement, Forward Industries and Galaxy Digital among the initial offerings.

The notice concerns proposed operations under the SEC’s innovation exemption, which allows conditional secondary trading (continued trading of eligible securities) through permissioned automated market maker liquidity pools on qualified venues. Those pools use algorithms and admit approved participants. Formation described an early-2027 launch target, not a live trading date, and supplied no regulatory timetable or compliance deadline.

What does the SEC notification establish?

Formation said it notified the SEC of its intention to operate the venue and described the project as the first tokenized-securities trading venue on Solana. For execution desks, that establishes intent rather than an immediate order-routing option: the announcement names no final eligibility tests, fee schedule, supported order types or operating date for client flow.

Takeaway: Formation has proposed a route to market; it has not opened one.

How would the trading and settlement workflow run?

Formation said tokenized shares would reach verified investors through Superstate Securities, Formation’s own platform, other distribution channels such as Alpaca, and custodians including Anchorage and BitGo Bank. The structure places investor onboarding, identity verification and asset access ahead of order handling.

• Investors would trade around the clock against stablecoins and other eligible assets, according to Formation.
• Each trade would settle atomically onchain, meaning delivery and payment would complete together rather than through separate settlement steps.
• Formation said the tokenized shares would carry the same voting and dividend rights as shares held by other shareholders.

That rights statement remains a company assertion rather than a feature demonstrated in the announcement. Formation supplied no token terms, custody contract or treatment for corporate actions. The same document would need to govern voting, dividends and settlement before desks could map client instructions to stablecoin settlement without creating a legal or operational gap.

Takeaway: The workflow exists in outline, but live orders still require asset-specific legal and operating instructions.

What execution claims still require evidence?

Formation said it selected Solana for reliability, speed, low cost and support for more than $5 billion in tokenized real-world assets. Those are the company’s selection criteria, not independent benchmarks, and the announcement disclosed no venue fees, spread measurements, throughput results or outage record.

Christopher Montagano, president of Formation Securities, said: “Tokenized stocks will succeed only if public companies see the value in them, and we intend to build this market together with issuers.”

He added: “Formation Securities is designed to give issuers and investors a new, transparent market, with trading beyond traditional market hours and faster onchain settlement, while preserving the key rights shareholders enjoy in the traditional financial space.”

Montagano’s formulation puts issuer participation at the center of venue economics. For traders and corporate execution teams, the distinction between claim and demonstrated performance also matters: always-on access can extend eligible trading windows, but stablecoin settlement, venue resilience and the economics of automated liquidity remain inputs for cost and risk assessment.

Takeaway: Solana’s capabilities support the proposal, but price, liquidity and reliability claims still lack published benchmarks.

Why did issuer objections matter?

Formation announced its plan after OKXICE, a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange, said it would list and trade tokenized shares under the same innovation exemption. OKXICE’s venue is not live, yet 67 firms have objected to the tokenization of their shares for trading on that platform.

Formation said it planned to work with issuers amid those objections. Issuer consent matters because a tokenized trading venue requires public companies to permit an underlying share to become available through the structure and to preserve the economic and governance rights associated with conventional ownership.

Takeaway: The source makes issuer consent the first gating issue for scalable tokenized-share liquidity.

Who is behind Formation Securities?

Formation was established last month through a merger of Solana-based decentralized exchange Orca and Loopscale, with a stated focus on tokenization and onchain finance. The company said it was already working with Figure, Shinhan Asset Management, Superstate, R3 and Securitize.

The announcement did not specify the scope or commercial terms of those five engagements, and it did not quantify committed liquidity for the three named launch candidates. Superstate’s stated role in distribution provides one defined link between Formation and investors; the other partnerships remain less precisely described in the source.

Takeaway: Formation has assembled technology, distribution and custody relationships, but the source does not yet establish committed launch volume.

For desks watching the early-2027 target, the next source-backed tests are issuer commitments, published operating terms and functioning distribution and custody links; without them, this remains a proposed venue rather than an executable secondary market.