WFE Research Finds Underlying Equity Markets Are The Dominant Source Of Price Discovery For Third-Party Tokenised Equities

New research from the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), the global industry association for exchanges and central counterparties (CCPs), finds that the underlying securities traded on traditional exchanges remain the main source of price discovery for third-party tokenised equities, despite tokens being available to trade around the clock.

The paper, One Instrument, Two Technologies: Price Discovery Between Tokenised and Traditional Equity Markets, analyses 61 matched token–underlying pairs over the first 11 months of the tokenised equity market, from July 2025 to May 2026.

It finds that the price relationship between tokenised equities and their underlying securities largely holds, with around 80 percent of pairs showing cointegration and the long-run relationship almost exactly one-for-one. Where prices diverge, the token generally does most of the adjustment back towards the price of the underlying equity.

The price-discovery analysis points in the same direction. For the median pair, more than 80 percent of the permanent component of the common price is attributed to the underlying equity. Using the Hasbrouck information-share measure, the token does not lead price discovery in any of the pairs analysed.

Pedro Gurrola-Perez, Head of Research at the WFE, said: “The results show that the fact that a tokenised market trades around the clock does not mean that it leads price discovery. The underlying equity market remains the anchor, while the token does most of the adjustment when the two prices diverge.

“In the 11 months covered by the study, tokenisation is extending access to prices formed in the established equity market rather than changing where those prices are formed.”

Nandini Sukumar, CEO of the WFE, said: “The research illustrates that the true exchange remains the source of price discovery. Even when a tokenised version of an equity can trade around the clock, the underlying equity market remains the reference point for that price.

"Tokenisation may change how securities are held, transferred and accessed, but it does not change the role of the market that establishes the underlying price."

Read the full paper, One Instrument, Two Technologies: Price Discovery Between Tokenised and Traditional Equity Markets.