US SEC Greenlights On-Chain Trading for Select Stocks

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has granted conditional relief to Tokenized Securities Venues (TSVs), allowing them to trade selected U.S. stocks on-chain. This move paves a regulated path for blockchain-based markets to handle certain equities.

Under the new framework, qualifying TSVs can use automated market makers and liquidity pools to support trading. The blockchain can be public and permissionless, but access to the trading venue itself will remain permissioned.

The exemption covers actual tokenized stocks that carry the same rights as their traditional shares, including voting rights and dividends. Public companies have a say over third-party tokenization of their shares, with issuers able to object to tokenized versions of their stock within 30 days.