The New Era of the Stock Market with Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman | All-In Summit 2025

A market reimagined: how exchanges became architects of modern finance

When an exchange stops being merely a venue and starts acting like an operating system, the rules of the game change. Adina Friedman, chief executive officer of Nasdaq, sketches that transformation in plain, deliberate terms: Nasdaq is no longer only where stocks trade, it is a technology company, a provider of market plumbing, and a guardian of trust across an increasingly complex financial ecosystem. The familiar image of a bell at four o'clock gives way to a network that runs in microseconds, routes billions of messages, and now contemplates tokenized shares and longer trading windows.

Three pillars that reframe what an exchange does

Friedman describes Nasdaq’s evolution with three clear pillars: architecting market infrastructure, powering innovation that props up growth companies, and building trust through surveillance and anti-financial-crime technologies. Each pillar reframes traditional exchange responsibilities. Instead of only matching buy and sell orders, exchanges now sell matching engines, surveillance software, and post-trade tooling to other exchanges and banks, positioning themselves as international infrastructure firms as much as market operators.

From matching orders to selling technology

Nasdaq’s technology sits behind 17 markets it runs and more than 135 markets where it licenses its systems. That shift turns a national exchange into a global software and services business — one that earns recurring revenue by modernizing market architecture and helping other exchanges migrate to resilient, cloud-enabled stacks.

Tokenization and the case for trading digital securities in the market core

The most consequential announcement Friedman made during the conversation was the decision to bring tokenization into the core of market trading. Tokenization promises to move securities from siloed or parallel rails into the heart of exchange activity, where orders are processed, and custody and settlement can be reimagined.

That matters because the real inefficiency in markets is not matching buy and sell intents but the post-trade plumbing: settlement windows, reconciliations, and capital frictions. Tokenized equities traded on an exchange could shrink settlement latency, reduce counterparty risk, and streamline capital flows in ways legacy systems never intended.

• Tokenized post-trade processing can cut friction and automate settlement flows.
• Trading in the market core avoids side channels and keeps liquidity consolidated.
• Regulatory clarity is the gating factor — exchanges insist on rules before they move aggressively.

Trading hours, global investors, and the social rhythm of markets

There is an unexpected social dimension to financial infrastructure: opening and closing times are not just technical constraints, they are cultural pauses. Friedman argues the market open and close will persist as anchors even if trading becomes essentially continuous across time zones. She favors a stepwise move to 24/5 trading rather than an abrupt dissolution of market boundaries, balancing global investor access with operational and regulatory realities.

Public markets under pressure and practical fixes for IPOs

Another thread that runs through this conversation is the growing weight of being a public company. Heavy disclosure, proxy fights, litigation risk, and the sheer operational toll have convinced many founders to stay private for longer. Friedman makes the case that public markets remain essential: they democratize ownership and fuel economic participation.

Her prescription is pragmatic. Reduce unnecessary disclosure burden, explore direct listings with capital raises, and consider litigation and proxy reform so the transition to public life is less like “crushing the Rubicon” and more like a manageable expansion of a company’s investor base.

Private liquidity and issuer-first marketplaces

Nasdaq Private Market sits at the intersection of private-company control and employee or early-investor liquidity. Rather than an unfettered secondary market, Friedman emphasizes an issuer-first approach: companies retain the right to manage their shareholder base while still permitting controlled liquidity through SPVs and structured processes.

That stance recognizes the legitimate reasons firms stay private, while acknowledging the demand for liquidity among employees and early backers. The balance between control and market access is part product design, part governance philosophy.

Risk, leverage, and the role of central banking

On systemic concerns — leverage, concentrated market cap, and real estate stress — Friedman strikes a steady tone. She defends the dollar’s long-term role as the reserve currency, expresses confidence in the Fed’s data-driven approach, and points to the distributed nature of many risks. Still, she acknowledges leverage exists across asset classes, and that transparency, oversight, and prudential guardrails remain essential to avoid cascading shocks.

What this moment asks of institutions

The common theme is less about a single technological breakthrough and more about institutional adaptation. Exchanges, regulators, banks, and issuers must negotiate a new set of trade-offs: speed versus safety, global access versus local rules, and innovation versus investor protection. Friedman’s message is clear: technology opens possibilities, but meaningful progress requires regulatory convergence, thoughtful product design, and a persistent commitment to trust.

Final thought

Markets are social technologies as much as they are digital systems; modernizing them means redesigning the incentives and rules that govern how capital flows, who gains access, and how trust is preserved. The next chapter of public markets will be written not merely by engineers or entrepreneurs, but by the uneasy coalition of exchanges, regulators, and investors who choose to translate technical promise into durable market practice.