The Texas Stock Exchange Is Now Live

TXSE moved fast. After beginning live trading on July 10, it completed full activation on July 31, bringing all 12,000-plus U.S. equity symbols onto the new venue and giving the market its first serious, well-funded challenger to the NYSE and Nasdaq in decades. The bigger tests are still ahead: the first exchange-traded product listing, Westwood's Salient Enhanced Power and Infrastructure ETF, is committed for the third quarter, corporate listings open in the fourth, and IPOs are expected in 2027. For now, TXSE is a trading venue. Whether it can pull corporate listings away from the NYSE and Nasdaq is the question that will define it. txse.com →

Here is a detail that surprises even seasoned market watchers: TXSE has no trading floor. Like Nasdaq, it is fully electronic, and the matching engine that pairs buy and sell orders runs from a data center in Secaucus, New Jersey. That is physics, not contradiction. To trade competitively, an exchange's engine has to sit microseconds from the NYSE and Nasdaq engines, which are also in New Jersey. Dallas is home to the company and its people, with a permanent headquarters planned in the Bank of America Tower that will include offices, a Texas business museum, and a broadcast studio, though not a trading pit. Friday's bell-ringing was ceremonial, held at TXSE's temporary Dallas offices to mark the exchange going fully live.

Wall Street's Clearinghouse Takes Real Securities On-Chain

The plumbing is going on-chain, with familiar names attached. On July 15, 2026, DTCC, custodian of more than $114 trillion in securities, ran its first live production trades of tokenized stocks, ETFs, and Treasuries, with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and Vanguard among more than two dozen firms taking part. In one demonstration, JPMorgan tokenized its holdings of the Invesco QQQ ETF and used them as collateral to meet a margin requirement at CME; the SPDR S&P 500 ETF was tokenized live during the event. The important distinction: these are not synthetic tokens that merely track a price. DTCC creates blockchain-based "digital twins" of real securities that carry the same legal ownership, dividend, and governance rights as the originals, unlike the tokenized wrappers common on some crypto platforms. A fuller service launch is planned for October. For public companies, it is a sign that the infrastructure behind U.S. markets is being rebuilt for a digital era.

Ever wonder why they're called "pink sheets"? In 1913, over-the-counter stock quotes were literally printed on pink paper and hand-delivered to brokers. Just over a century later, this month, DTCC started turning real securities into tokenized "digital twins" on a blockchain. From ink on pink paper to code on a blockchain.

Digital Asset Rules Hit a Recess Deadline

The CLARITY Act, which would draw a clear line between SEC and CFTC authority over digital assets, is down to the wire. With the Senate about to break for its August recess, leadership has reserved floor time and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly urged a vote, but passage is far from certain. An updated Republican draft added an ethics provision barring senior federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets, and several Democrats have come out against its enforcement approach, leaving the bill short of the 60 votes it needs. If the Senate does not act before the break, most observers expect the 2026 window to close and push any deal past the November midterms. The bill has passed the House and cleared Senate committee, but it is not law. We will report what actually passes. congress.gov →

Regulators Keep Working to Ease the Path to Public Markets

Several summer developments point the same direction: reducing the friction of entering and staying public. SEC small-business committee: the SEC's Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee met July 21 to explore modernizing the IPO process and encouraging more companies to go and stay public, and reconvenes virtually on August 6. FINRA rule changes: on July 24, the SEC approved FINRA's amendments to Rules 5110 and 5123, part of an effort to modernize capital raising and private-placement filings. Registered offering reform: the SEC's proposal to expand Form S-3 eligibility and ease registered offerings closed public comment on July 27. For smaller issuers, it adds up to a favorable backdrop worth tracking.

Climbing the Listing Ladder

Uplisting is the process of moving a company's securities to a more visible, higher-standard market. The path typically runs from the OTCID Basic Market up through the OTCQB and OTCQX venture markets, and ultimately to a national exchange such as Nasdaq or the NYSE. Companies pursue it for greater visibility, deeper liquidity, access to institutional capital, and eligibility for index and ETF inclusion.

It is rarely automatic. Each step up requires cleaner reporting, stronger corporate governance, and meeting the next tier's listing standards. Sequenced correctly, it can change how a company is perceived and traded, which is exactly the planning we help companies with.

Several notable uplistings took place in July:

Active quotation starts with Rule 15c2-11 and the Form 211 package. The Exchange prepares the complete filing package with you, document by document, working alongside your legal and accounting team.