Crypto’s Audacious Bid to Rebuild Stock Market on the Blockchain

First, they came for the currency market. Then, the money market. Now, crypto’s big disruptors are targeting the multi-trillion-dollar heart of global capitalism: the stock market.

Dismissed as a fringe fantasy years ago after a regulatory backlash and the collapse of early projects, the first attempts by the digital-asset industry to put shares on the blockchain fizzled out. This time, a new cohort of players — from crypto giants Coinbase Global Inc. and Kraken to retail favorite Robinhood Markets Inc. — is making a fresh run at rewiring the very plumbing that governs equities around the world.

The ambition ...