SEC Digs Deeper into Shareholder Registers, Not Blockchain Tech

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been gathering input on tokenized securities from its Crypto Task Force, focusing on how existing securities law applies to these digital assets.

The key issue is not whether a token is a security, but rather who is actually listed as the owner of record in the shareholder register. This means that regulators are scrutinizing the link between the token and the underlying shareholding, rather than the blockchain technology used to represent it.

A share of stock is an entry in a company's official register of shareholders, which determines rights such as dividend payments, voting, and legal claims. Tokenized shares must be linked to this register entry for ownership to be legally equivalent to being registered.