SEC Delays Tokenized Stocks Innovation Exemption Amid Concerns: Bloomberg

The Securities and Exchange Commission has abandoned plans to issue a broad regulatory framework allowing US crypto companies to trade in tokenized stocks and other assets, Bloomberg it said on Friday. The move slows high-profile efforts to integrate blockchain into major securities markets.

Agency officials were planning to release the so-called new waivers this week, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. But that time has changed as the SEC takes comments from stockbrokers and other traders who spoke with the agency’s staff today.

The sticking point is a feature that would allow the sale of third-party tokens – digital representations of company shares that are issued without the knowledge or approval of the entities that own them.

That prospect has worried some former regulators and market analysts, Bloomberg he said, who warn that it could lead to problems for public companies that are trying to pay dividends and count the votes of shareholders as signs are increasing on the network.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins had previously said that the agency would soon release its proposed regulatory framework that could act as a sandbox for financial regulation. The delay affects companies planning to launch tokenized projects under the proposed scheme.

Amid criticism for the delay, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce defended the small proposal.

The system was “very small and would allow for transactions to be shown on digital images with the same security that an investor would buy on the secondary market today, not for production,” Peirce said. wrote on X. He said he appreciates the public interest in the administration, but not the hyperbole surrounding it.