Nasdaq-listed fintech Perpetuals.com is seeking to launch a blockchain-based marketplace for tokenized U.S. stocks, becoming the second company to pursue such a venue under a new five-year exemption from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The project is being led by CEO Patrick Gruhn, a former head of FTX Europe who previously worked on stock-linked crypto products.
According to CoinDesk, Perpetuals.com filed a public notice on Wednesday outlining plans for a U.S. tokenized securities venue. The marketplace would be operated by Kephas Corporation, a Delaware-based subsidiary of the company.
The SEC framework, introduced in September, permits certain marketplaces to trade U.S. stocks on public blockchains without registering as conventional securities exchanges. The exemption is temporary, lasting five years, and includes requirements intended to preserve the rights attached to ordinary shares.
Under the framework, tokens must provide the same shareholder rights as traditional stock, including voting and dividend rights. Companies whose shares are proposed for tokenization also have 30 days to object to their securities being traded on a tokenized venue.
Perpetuals.com follows OKXICE, a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. OKXICE submitted plans last week for round-the-clock trading in more than 60 tokenized U.S. stocks.
Gruhn’s previous tokenization work
The planned marketplace represents a return to tokenized equities for Gruhn and members of his team. In 2021, Gruhn co-founded Swiss tokenization company Digital Assets AG, which worked with German investment firm CM-Equity to develop digital tokens linked to shares such as Tesla and Coinbase for crypto-market users.
Digital Assets AG was later acquired by FTX Group and became part of FTX Europe, which Gruhn led before the wider FTX group collapsed in November 2022. The earlier products, however, were not identical to the securities contemplated under the SEC’s new framework.
Those tokens generally provided exposure to the price of an underlying stock but did not necessarily grant the rights of a shareholder. Binance stopped offering its stock tokens in July 2021 amid regulatory scrutiny, including concerns from Germany’s BaFin about the absence of a published securities prospectus.
“The Perpetuals team has long been trailblazers in tokenization, and this expansion into the U.S. allows us to further utilize our platform and deep expertise,” Gruhn said in a statement.
Perpetuals.com already supplies trading technology to Perpetual Markets MTF, a Cyprus-based marketplace licensed under Europe’s MiFID II framework. That marketplace also received authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation in August.
The company reported total assets of $65.2 million at the end of April and a net loss of $17.6 million for its fiscal year. Earlier this year, it also agreed to work with Datavault AI on infrastructure for planned tokenized commodity offerings involving copper, gold and other physical assets. The companies targeted more than $300 million in issuance for those offerings.
How the proposed platform would operate
Perpetuals.com intends to use permissioned automated market maker, or AMM, liquidity pools rather than a conventional exchange order book. AMMs use smart contracts and pooled assets to facilitate trades between buyers and sellers. In the proposed setup, each pool would pair a tokenized U.S. stock with a digital asset.
The initial trading pair is expected to use a form of USDC, the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle. Investors who meet the platform’s eligibility requirements would therefore be able to trade tokenized shares against the stablecoin.
The system is initially planned for Kronos X Public, an Ethereum-compatible layer-2 blockchain developed by Perpetuals.com. A layer-2 network is designed to process transactions alongside an underlying blockchain while remaining compatible with its technology.
Perpetuals.com has not announced a firm launch date. A company spokesperson told CoinDesk that trading could begin as early as mid-November, after the required 30-day period following the public notice. That timetable depends on completing market-data and compliance arrangements, reviewing the security of the smart contracts and finishing other technical preparations.
The company also plans to publish updated disclosures before trading starts, including live addresses for the smart contracts used by the platform.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at the stated times show mixed performance among the listed digital assets:
- Compound (COMP) was trading at $22.4040587261, down 0.39% over 24 hours and 3.68% over seven days, as of October 15, 2026, at 21:09 +03:30.
- Four (FORM) stood at $0.2552428347, down 0.84% in 24 hours and 3.43% over seven days, as of 21:08 +03:30.
- WINkLink (WIN) was priced at $0.0000550751, down 1.47% over 24 hours but up 2.05% over seven days, as of 21:08 +03:30.
- cat in a dogs world (MEW) was at $0.0004299077, up 0.63% over 24 hours but down 7.56% over seven days, as of 21:08 +03:30.
The proposed Perpetuals.com venue would connect blockchain-based trading infrastructure with regulated U.S. securities, while the SEC exemption sets the conditions under which that connection can operate. Its launch remains dependent on the company completing the required operational, compliance and security work.
