Formation Securities notice sets up Orca-powered Solana venue for tokenized stocks

What happened

Formation Securities, which licenses its trading software from the Solana automated market maker Orca, filed a public notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 9 stating that it intends to operate a tokenized securities venue on Solana, with trading expected to begin in early 2027. The company called the plan the first such venue on the network. The filing is not an approval; the notice states that the SEC has not passed on the merits or accuracy of its disclosures.

Under the proposal, trading would take place exclusively in permissioned AMM liquidity pools built on licensed Orca contracts, with no order book involved. Only wallets cleared through identity checks, know-your-customer and know-your-business verification plus sanctions and wallet screening, could trade or add liquidity. Tokenized shares on the venue could be swapped only for tokenized money market funds or for crypto assets that are not securities. Formation said it would not custody user assets or private keys, and that an offchain board oversees the venue while the company keeps administrative control of the contracts, including the ability to upgrade or pause them, set fees and edit the allowlist. Upgrades and other critical changes would need multi-signature approval from Formation staff; trading pauses would not.

Among the companies whose tokenized shares are anticipated at launch are Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY), Exodus Movement (NYSE: EXOD) and Forward Industries (NASDAQ: FWDI), all crypto-linked firms. Superstate and Securitize are expected to supply the tokenized securities, while Alpaca, Anchorage Digital Bank, BitGo, Fireblocks, Jito's JTX, Solflare, Squads and CoinList's Passage are lined up to route investors to the platform. The notice identifies Formation as a wholly owned subsidiary of Valcrest, Inc. It also said no issuer had filed an objection as of Nov. 9; where third parties tokenize shares without a company's involvement, Formation must notify the issuer and let the objection window expire before listing.

Formation president Christopher Montagano framed issuer participation as central to the project. "Tokenized stocks will succeed only if public companies see the value in them, and we intend to build this market together with issuers," he said in the company's release.