SEC Unleashes $77 Trillion US Stock Market Through Blockchain-Native Venues
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken a significant step towards allowing tokenized stocks to trade on blockchain-native venues. This move, announced by SEC Chair Paul Atkins, comes after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, a broad crypto market-structure bill that would have established statutory rules for digital assets.
The exemption, which is set to last five years, allows Tokenized Securities Venues (TSVs) to bring buyers and sellers together through permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools. These venues will receive temporary relief from being treated as exchanges under the Securities Exchange Act, while certain liquidity providers using their own capital can receive related relief from dealer-registration requirements.
The exemption is narrowly focused on tokenized National Market System stocks that represent genuine securities, which must give holders the same rights and privileges as equivalent traditional shares. Issuers also retain control over what reaches these new venues, with companies having an opportunity to object when an unaffiliated third party seeks to tokenize their securities.
This move is significant because it opens the $77 trillion US stock market to crypto-style trading. According to Token Terminal data, tokenized stocks have already reached a record $3.2 billion in market capitalization, up 1,219.3% over the past year. Trading volume has also increased, with $15.75 billion in decentralized-exchange trading volume over the past 30 days.