Securitize lands on NYSE, immediately tokenizes itself because of course it does 🪙

Securitize, a tokenization platform backed by BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday under the ticker symbol SECZ after closing its merger with Cantor Equity Partners II, a Cantor Fitzgerald-backed special-purpose acquisition company. The combined entity will operate as Securitize Corp., with shareholders of Cantor Equity Partners II approving the business combination on June 29 and the deal formally closing on June 30. Securitize raised approximately $400 million in the transaction at a $1.25 billion pre-money valuation, making it the first pure-play tokenization infrastructure company to list on a major U.S. exchange.

On its first day of trading, SECZ hit an intraday high of $13.70 before closing at $12.30, a gain of about 4.4%, and continued climbing 2.4% after-hours to $12.60. Cantor Equity Partners II shares had jumped more than 19% on the merger approval. Securitize CEO and co-founder Carlos Domingo framed the listing in terms of the broader sector: "Today, tokenization is moving into the mainstream, and we believe becoming a public company gives us the visibility, credibility, and capital to lead that next phase of growth."

The firm simultaneously launched tokenized versions of its own common stock on the Avalanche and Solana layer-1 networks, with $266 million worth of tokenized SECZ issued at debut in what the company described as the largest tokenized stock in the world. "We have long said that public equities are moving on-chain, and there is no stronger validation of that belief than tokenizing our own public stock on Day 1," Domingo said. "SECZ is not a synthetic token or offshore wrapper. It is issuer-sponsored tokenization of the same common stock trading on the NYSE, made available through regulated infrastructure." Securitize President Brett Redfearn, a former SEC director of trading and markets who joined the company in April, told Decrypt the launch offers "a blueprint for public companies that want to use tokenization to create more efficient, transparent, and useful ownership experiences for their shareholders" and that bringing real-world assets on-chain will benefit everyday investors through disintermediation.

Founded in 2017, Securitize holds SEC-registered broker-dealer, transfer agent, fund administrator, and ATS operator roles in the U.S. and authorization under the EU DLT Pilot Regime in Europe. Its institutional client roster includes BlackRock, whose BUIDL tokenized money market fund administered on the platform has grown to over $3 billion in total value locked, along with Apollo, KKR, Hamilton Lane, and VanEck. As of June, the firm reported more than $4 billion in assets under management. In March, Securitize partnered with the NYSE to create tokenized assets for the exchange's upcoming tokenized securities platform, and Benchmark Equity Research reiterated a "Buy" rating with a $16 price target earlier in June. The SEC clarified in January that issuer-sponsored tokenized securities remain subject to U.S. securities laws, and Securitize said access to tokenized SECZ will be subject to onboarding, eligibility, and customer ID and money-laundering checks. The broader tokenized real-world asset market now exceeds $43 billion, according to Token Terminal, with tokenized money market funds accounting for the majority, tokenized commodities at nearly $7 billion, and tokenized stocks at $1.6 billion.