A massive tech update will bring faster, cheaper trading to Wall Street. Get ready for stocks on a blockchain

The DTCC regime, which has been in place for decades, means it’s no longer necessary to record every single share transfer. Instead, the clearinghouse keeps track of the stock held by different brokerages on behalf of their customers and settles up transactions between those brokerages the next business day.“Once upon a time there were leather-bound journals that said who owns all the stock,” explains Robert Leshner, a former economist who now runs the tokenization firm Superstate. “Then, people said, ‘This ...