US SEC Delays Tokenized US Stocks Exempt Plan

According to a Bloomberg report, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has decided to delay the launch of the "Innovative Exemption" program. This program aims to provide a clearer regulatory framework for tokenizing assets that are linked to publicly traded companies' stocks and traded on cryptocurrency platforms. Insiders revealed that SEC staff were prepared to release this framework as soon as last week, with the draft finished and having passed internal review.

Under the leadership of the new chairman, Paul Atkins, this framework was initially planned to allow digital tokens linked to publicly traded companies' stocks to be traded on cryptocurrency trading platforms, breaking through the traditional stock exchanges' trading time limitations, and establishing a completely new regulatory path for such assets.

The core point of contention lies in whether to permit third-party tokens to issue blockchain tokens linked to the stocks of companies such as Apple, NVIDIA, Tesla, and others, without the consent or support of the listed companies, and to trade them on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

At present, the SEC has not decided to make substantive changes to the content of the draft, but the release time has been significantly postponed. Over the past few days, stock exchange officials and a number of market participants have discussed the details of the plan with SEC staff, and the regulatory authorities are carefully assessing the feedback.

According to the existing plan, platforms that provide such tokens must ensure that investors have the same rights as ordinary shareholders, including dividend distribution and voting rights. However, several former regulatory officials have pointed out that there are clear obstacles in practice: since tokens are circulated on anonymous blockchain networks, companies find it technically challenging to accurately identify the ultimate holders and fulfill corresponding obligations. Several publicly traded companies have expressed concerns to stock exchange officials about the potential chaos in routine corporate governance matters such as dividend distribution and voting rights counting.

In addition, there is also division within the SEC regarding the opening up of third-party token trading. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce stated in a post on platform X on Thursday that she expected the scope of this innovation exemption to be "quite limited," only allowing the trading of "digital representations of the same underlying equity securities," that is, digital versions of securities that investors can currently purchase directly in the secondary market.