The Securities and Exchange Commission is drafting what it calls an innovation exemption that could give blockchain-based versions of U.S. stocks a path to regulated trading without waiting for Congress to rewrite securities law.
Early details suggest this would not authorize a free-for-all in tokenized equities. Instead, the rule would create a limited lane for firms that want to issue or trade digital representations of stocks that already exist in the traditional market.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce described the framework as limited in scope and said it would cover digital representations of the same underlying equity security an investor could purchase in the secondary market today, not synthetics. In other words, the focus appears to be tokenized versions of real listed shares rather than blockchain tokens that simply mirror a stock’s price.
The proposal still appears to be taking shape after delays and agency feedback, but as it stands, this looks less like a full rewrite of market structure and more like a narrow test of what can fit within current securities law.