SEC grants temporary exemption for tokenized US stock trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a temporary Innovation Exemption that allows a limited form of trading for tokenized U.S. stocks on designated onchain venues. Under the exemption, Tokenized Securities Venues (TSVs) may operate permissioned trading for tokenized National Market System (NMS) securities using automated market makers and liquidity pools. The framework attaches several operational and disclosure obligations to those venues. Commissioner Mark Uyeda said TSVs will need to meet requirements for transaction transparency, maintain records, and implement technology safeguards. TSV operators must also publish U.S. dollar-denominated transaction data on a regular basis, including prices, trade sizes, timestamps, pool addresses, end-of-day pool sizes and daily volumes. The Innovation Exemption is explicitly constrained: symbol and volume limits will apply, and the SEC described the approach as controlled so the agency can collect data from live or test environments. The SEC is soliciting public feedback on the framework and seeking data, case studies and other information to inform how onchain securities trading functions in practice. The exemption follows months of work within the agency; in February SEC Chair Paul Atkins indicated the regulator was considering a temporary framework that would permit limited trading of tokenized securities via AMMs while it develops longer-term rules. The temporary exemption is intended to provide regulatory visibility into onchain trading activity as the SEC evaluates options for future regulation.