The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has created a potential route for qualifying trading venues to offer tokenized versions of U.S. stocks on public blockchains without registering as exchanges. The measure, known as the “innovation exemption,” comes as the Clarity Act has stalled, according to Decrypt. Its scope is limited: price-tracking synthetic products are excluded, meaning the exemption applies to tokenized representations of actual shares rather than instruments designed only to mirror stock prices. Companies would also retain the ability to prevent their shares from being tokenized. The framework could give eligible venues a regulatory path for blockchain-based stock trading while leaving issuers with control over whether their shares participate. The development is relevant to digital-asset markets because it addresses how blockchain platforms may handle tokenized traditional securities, although the exemption does not cover every form of stock-linked product.
