By Mahe, Foresight News

On July 23, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will hold a public roundtable meeting at its Washington headquarters on September 17, focusing on preparations for the U.S. stock market to move towards 24-hour trading. The meeting will discuss the infrastructure supporting overnight trading, operations and resilience in a 24-hour market, and the opportunities and challenges of extending trading hours.

SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins stated in a statement: "We are heading towards a new day—and a new night—for the U.S. stock market. With the expansion of overnight trading, I look forward to the U.S. stock market aligning with those markets that have already achieved continuous trading, while also looking forward to striking a balance between 24/7 trading and the crucial protection of investors and clients."

This roundtable discussion may signify a crucial juncture in the substantial transition of U.S. stocks from traditional trading hours to a near-23x5 (23x5) model. For the crypto industry, especially in the RWA (Real-World Asset) tokenization field, this change both compresses some of the differentiation narratives and opens up deeper space for integration.

US Stock Trading Embraces Change Since 1985, the regular trading hours for exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have been fixed at 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday. This arrangement has continued for over four decades. While maintaining regular trading hours for US stocks has been beneficial for centralized price discovery and reduced operating costs, in today's highly electronic global capital flows, this arrangement is outdated. Asian and European investors who want to trade US stocks during their local daytime trading hours often have to rely on futures or illiquid pre- and after-hours trading, a far less convenient experience than trading crypto assets. Meanwhile, retail investors have become accustomed to placing orders anytime via mobile apps and are increasingly impatient with the "waiting" that prevents them from trading immediately after major news releases. Outside of regular hours, there are limited extended trading windows. Pre-market trading typically runs from midnight to 9:30 AM; after-hours trading extends from 4 PM to around 8 PM. These extended sessions are offered by exchanges, alternative trading systems (ATS), and brokerage platforms, but liquidity is significantly lower than regular sessions, spreads are wider, and price discovery efficiency is lower. Regulators such as FINRA have repeatedly warned investors of the higher volatility and execution risks associated with extended sessions. In recent years, some brokerages and ATSs have further extended trading into overnight sessions. For example, platforms like Interactive Brokers offer overnight trading from 8 PM Sunday to approximately 3:50 AM Friday (with a brief maintenance window), covering some S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 constituent stocks, and ETFs. However, according to observations of the public market, actual overnight trading volume has consistently accounted for only a very small percentage of the total market volume, making it difficult to generate deep price discovery. Overall, the US stock market remains characterized by concentrated daytime trading on weekdays, with complete market closures on weekends and most holidays. This contrasts sharply with the 24/7, year-round operation of the crypto asset market, and is one of the key differentiators frequently emphasized in the RWA tokenization narrative. 23/5 Trading? Since 2024, several exchanges and market infrastructure institutions have accelerated their efforts towards near-24/7 trading. 24X National Exchange is the first national securities exchange to receive SEC approval to conduct 23-hour trading (23x5), and plans to officially launch full 23/5 night trading in the second half of 2026. NYSE Arca plans to extend its trading hours to approximately 22 hours, also aiming for the end of 2026. Nasdaq has publicly proposed the "Global Trading Hours" plan, aiming to add a night trading session from 9 PM to 4 AM the following day, creating a nearly 23-hour trading day when combined with existing sessions. The target timeframe is also the second half of 2026, provided regulatory approval and industry infrastructure align. Cboe is also advancing its 23x5 plan for platforms like EDGX. Infrastructure progress is even more crucial. DTCC's National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) launched its 24x5 clearing service on June 28, 2026, covering trading activity from 8 PM Sunday to 8 PM Friday, providing immediate central counterparty guarantees for overnight trades, significantly reducing counterparty risk. These developments mean that by the end of 2026 or early 2027, US stocks are expected to achieve near-continuous weekday trading within the regulatory framework. True 24/7 (including weekends) trading still faces higher hurdles, but the "money never sleeps" concept has moved from discussion to implementation. The roundtable meeting on September 17th was a public alignment between the SEC and representatives from exchanges, market makers, clearinghouses, brokerages, and investors on core issues such as operational resilience, liquidity management, and investor protection, prior to the official large-scale opening of trading. The move towards near-24/7 trading in US stocks directly impacted one of the most frequently used selling points of RWA tokenization platforms—"Traditional markets only allow daytime trading, while on-chain trading is available 24/7." The current RWA market has reached a certain scale, especially in perpetual contract trading volume. According to the latest data from Blockworks, last week, Hyperliquid's RWA trading volume surpassed crypto asset trading for the first time, accounting for 54% of the platform's total trading volume. Among these, single-stock trading has become the fastest-growing category. Since June, individual stock trading volume has exceeded that of indices and commodities, currently accounting for approximately 61% of Hyperliquid RWA's total trading volume, indicating that the on-chain financial market is expanding from purely crypto asset trading to traditional assets. With the extension of trading hours for US stocks, the appeal of simply "being able to trade stocks during Asian hours or at night" will be diluted. Institutional and cross-border investors will be able to complete near-24/7 transactions more directly on regulated traditional exchanges and ATS, without having to rely entirely on tokenized channels. In terms of compliance costs, custody, and settlement certainty, traditional paths remain more attractive to many large funds. However, the impact is not entirely negative. True 24/7 and instant atomic settlement remain on-chain advantages. Even with 23x5 trading hours for US stocks, weekend and holiday gaps still exist, and clearing and settlement still rely on the DTCC system, making it difficult to completely eliminate T+0 and T+1 friction. RWA tokens can achieve near-instant ownership transfer and settlement on public chains and naturally support programmable logic, including automatic dividends, staking, and portfolio management. The regulatory environment is evolving in tandem. The SEC, under Paul Atkins' leadership, has explicitly included "facilitating on-chain trading of tokenized securities" in its 2026 regulatory agenda and is advancing a token classification framework. Tokenized securities are still defined as securities and subject to federal securities laws, but innovation exemptions and related rule adjustments are under discussion. The DTCC is also advancing tokenized settlement pilots. The experience accumulated in overnight liquidity management, price protection, and system resilience during the extended trading hours of US stocks actually provides a reference for regulatory practices in the compliant RWA secondary market. Some crypto platforms have explored cooperation, such as integrating tokenized US stocks with traditional account systems and global liquidity. On July 10th of this year, Backpack launched the world's first 24/7 real US stock trading market for international investors. Users can buy, sell, and hold real US stocks around the clock, rather than synthetic derivatives. Ondo's tokenized stocks are backed by 1:1 underlying securities and are pegged to traditional market liquidity through a minting and redemption mechanism. Users can trade these tokens directly on cryptocurrency exchanges, while non-US users can more easily gain exposure to US stocks. For the RWA platform, the real competitive advantage is shifting from "trading time differences" to "settlement finality, cross-border accessibility, DeFi composability, and interoperability with traditional infrastructure." Tokenization of non-public market assets such as private lending, real estate, and alternative assets is less affected by changes in US stock trading hours and may even benefit from increased overall tokenization acceptance. However, risks also need to be acknowledged. Overnight liquidity is inevitably thin initially, making prices more susceptible to manipulation. If the RWA platform opens trading during a low-liquidity window, it must simultaneously strengthen risk control, circuit breakers, and market-making mechanisms; otherwise, it may amplify volatility and damage the industry's reputation. Regulatory pressure on purely licensed and synthetic products may further increase as traditional markets extend trading hours, correspondingly enhancing the value of compliant issuance and ATS/exchange pathways.