The Securities and Exchange Comission is pushing back against a growing market for “tokenized stocks” that look like equity, trade like equity, but do not actually confer ownership, releasing new guidance that puts third-party synthetic equity products squarely under traditional securities and derivatives rules. In a joint statement, the SEC’s Divisions of Corporation Finance, Investment Management, and Trading and Markets…
My theory of “tokenization” — turning various financial or physical assets into crypto tokens that can trade on the blockchain — is that most people who talk about tokenization pretend that it is a computer technology, but really it’s a regulatory technology. When people say stuff like “we should tokenize real estate so that people can buy and sell fractional…
The US Senate updated its crypto market structure bill on Friday, adding a key provision to clarify how tokenized assets are regulated. The new clause would ensure that stocks and other securities remain classified as securities when tokenized on a blockchain, avoiding potential confusion over whether they should fall under commodities regulation. The distinction is important for digital asset firms…
NASDAQ, the U.S. exchange where the tech sector’s biggest names list their stocks, is seeking to put stocks on the blockchain, asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to bless its effort even as others in the securities world are sprinting toward the same tokenization goal. If the SEC filing is approved, the exchange would let customers choose…
Digital asset investment firm Galaxy Digital (GLXY) is bringing its stock onto blockchain rails as equity tokenization is gaining steam. The Nasdaq-listed company has partnered with blockchain firm Superstate to make its Class A common stock available as tokens on the Solana network through Superstate’s Opening Bell platform. The arrangement preserves the full rights of SEC-registered equity while allowing investors…
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins has reiterated his friendlier approach toward cryptocurrency compared to the previous administration, saying there are “very few” tokens that are securities. During a Tuesday appearance at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, Atkins said the SEC would “plow forward and on this idea that just the token itself is not necessarily the security, and…
The U.S. regulatory environment for digital assets has never been more promising for the industry. Since the change in administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has committed to stemming what it has characterized as the hostility of recent years, and the agency’s new leadership has remarked that “despite what the SEC has said in the past, most crypto assets…
Market forces will ultimately prove which forms of tokenizing securities and other real-world assets will win out, Securities and Exchange Commission member Hester Peirce said Tuesday. “We’re willing to work with people who are taking different approaches,” Peirce said about tokenization in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We’re looking forward to working with folks to try those different models out…
James Howells, the man who has been hunting down his lost hard drive containing 8,000 BTC, addressed circulating reports claiming that he has given up on his 12-year search. In 2013, a British IT engineer accidentally threw out his hard drive containing Bitcoin he had mined a few years earlier, which ended up in a landfill site in Newport. As…
Contrary to the SEC’s position under prior Chair Gary Gensler, Atkins said most crypto assets aren’t securities, and confusion over the Howey Test has hindered U.S. capital formation, the analysts noted. The SEC now plans to offer clearer rules to classify crypto assets into categories such as digital commodities, stablecoins, and digital collectibles. The initiative would also support the creation…