CoinW Research Institute

On September 17, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an innovative exemption allowing eligible tokenized securities venues (TSV) to trade tokenized U.S. listed stocks under a permitted environment using automated market makers (AMM) and liquidity pools, with the exemption valid until September 17, 2031. This arrangement lowers the regulatory hurdles for on-chain trading of tokenized stocks in exchange and dealer identification while retaining stricter compliance requirements. The operating entities need to be based in the U.S. and meet OFAC requirements, participants must pass licensing access, and tokenized stocks must retain the same shareholder rights, such as dividends and voting, as traditional stocks. Relevant smart contracts must also be public, auditable, and deployed on public permissionless blockchains.

The significance of this policy became more pronounced after the CLARITY Act faced obstacles in advancement. On September 15, the CLARITY Act failed to reach the 60-vote threshold in procedural voting in the Senate with a tally of 49 to 50, and two days later the SEC used existing regulatory authority to advance rules related to tokenized stocks. Following the announcement, the market quickly traded on related expectations, with UNI rising nearly 15% and ONDO up about 7.4%. From an industry development perspective, the SEC's inclusion of real stock rights, public blockchains, and permitted AMM into the same framework indicates that tokenized U.S. stocks are beginning to expand from overseas products primarily focused on price exposure to compliant securities trading within the U.S. As the rules surrounding issuance, custody, trading, and settlement gradually become clear, competition in the tokenized stock space will also focus more on compliance capabilities, real asset foundations, and liquidity efficiency.

SEC Innovative Exemption Clarifies On-Chain Framework for Tokenized U.S. Stocks

The innovative exemption released by the SEC can be summarized in four core aspects, including U.S. domestic operations, on-chain trading, real stock rights, and the entry of AMM and liquidity pools into the tokenized U.S. stock trading framework. Eligible tokenized securities venues can temporarily avoid registration as traditional securities exchanges during the approximately five-year exemption period, and some qualified liquidity providers may also receive dealer identity exemptions. Requirements under securities laws such as anti-fraud and anti-manipulation still apply, and the SEC aims to explore new ways of issuance and trading for tokenized stocks while retaining existing regulatory requirements.

U.S. domestic operation remains a basic requirement; tokenized securities venues must be operated by eligible U.S. entities and comply with relevant regulations such as OFAC. Users and liquidity providers participating in trading must also complete identity verification or qualification review. Thus, while tokenized U.S. stocks can operate on public blockchains, the trading entry is still controlled by compliant platforms, and requirements such as KYC, whitelisting, and trading permissions will remain in place.

With stocks truly entering the on-chain trading phase, the SEC requires that the relevant smart contracts be public, auditable, and deployed on public permissionless blockchains, while also requiring platforms to continuously disclose trading data such as transaction prices, volumes, times, and liquidity pool addresses. Consequently, stocks’ holdings, transfers, and some trading records can be completed directly on-chain, marking a shift of public blockchains from supporting crypto-native assets to extending further into regulated securities.

Tokens must represent real stock rights; eligible tokenized stocks need to provide holders with rights essentially consistent with traditional comparable stocks, including dividends, voting, and company rights. Purely price-tracking synthetic assets cannot be directly applied to this exemption. If a third party wishes to tokenize the stock of a listed company, they must also notify the issuer in advance, and the listed company has the right to object. This indicates that the market will more clearly differentiate between real stock tokens and stocks that only provide price exposure in the future.

AMM and liquidity pools have entered the tokenized U.S. stock trading framework for the first time; eligible stock tokens can be traded through permitted AMM, and professional institutions can also provide assets to liquidity pools. In the past, when tokenized securities entered DeFi, AMM could trigger registration requirements for exchanges, and liquidity providers could face dealer identity determinations. This exemption reduces regulatory barriers in both areas. In the future, there may be more specialized permissioned on-chain protocols serving tokenized securities, directly embedding identity verification, asset access, trading suspensions, and restrictions into smart contracts.

However, this exemption still sets clear scale limits, with a maximum of 75 primary underlying assets, and a single stock's on-chain transaction volume must not exceed 0.25% of the average daily transaction volume in the previous month; for secondary underlying assets, the maximum is 250, with a corresponding cap of 2.5%. If underlying stocks are suspended on major exchanges, on-chain trading must also be suspended. At this stage, the SEC is still controlling the scale of the experiment, but real stock rights, public blockchains, and AMM liquidity have been incorporated into the same regulatory framework, which is the most notable change regarding tokenized U.S. stocks from this innovative exemption.

From a regulatory design perspective, this exemption exhibits significant characteristics of a regulatory sandbox. The SEC has controlled on-chain trading within a relatively limited scope of direct impact on the existing U.S. stock market through conditions such as the number of underlying assets, single stock transaction limits, permitted participation, and synchronized suspensions. Additionally, it requires TSV to continuously disclose data on trading prices, transaction volumes, times, liquidity pool addresses, and pool sizes while simultaneously collecting market feedback. SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda explicitly stated that this data will be used to monitor and research securities trading under the exemption framework, and Chairman Paul Atkins has positioned the innovative exemption as a transitional arrangement towards long-term rules. In this light, the five-year duration not only serves the function of testing tokenized U.S. stock products but also plays a role in regulatory observation and data accumulation, allowing the SEC to continuously assess issues such as price discovery, liquidity, technical stability, market manipulation, and compliance execution in a real trading environment before adjusting long-term rules and applicability based on operational results, thereby accumulating experience in introducing blockchain technology into more aspects such as securities issuance, custody, trading, clearing, and settlement, leading the U.S. financial system progressively towards a more comprehensive on-chain direction.

Tokenized U.S. Stocks Heating Up, Meme Stocks Welcome New Catalysts

After clearer on-chain trading rules for tokenized U.S. stocks were established, the market first began trading on related assets and infrastructure expectations, with UNI rising nearly 15% and ONDO increasing by about 7.4%. Ondo has already laid out tokenized products supported by real securities in the U.S. and has accessed voting and shareholder information services through Broadridge, aligning closely with the SEC's emphasis on complete stock rights. The benefit logic of Uniswap comes from the permitted AMM, as v4 can incorporate whitelisting, identity verification, and trading restrictions through Hooks to provide on-chain liquidity for tokenized stocks. As real stocks gradually enter on-chain, there is further expansion potential for issuance, trading, and liquidity management of tokenized securities.

This expectation transmits to meme stocks, with Robinhood Chain becoming a more direct observation target. After launching its mainnet in July, Robinhood has introduced about 200 types of stock and ETF tokens to over 120 countries and regions outside the U.S., using the ERC-20 standard, which can continue to enter wallets, DEXs, lending, and other on-chain applications. Therefore, stock assets now have stronger composability, providing a foundation for the formation of meme issuance, trading pairs, and liquidity pools around popular stocks like Nvidia and Tesla. Previously, meme stocks on Robinhood Chain experienced rapid warming, based fundamentally on the combination of stock themes with on-chain trading mechanisms.

This time, the SEC further permits eligible real tokenized stocks to enter permitted AMM, effectively adding a new source of assets to this model. In the future, if more stock tokens retaining rights such as dividends and voting enter on-chain, DEXs, lending, collateralization, and other protocols on the Robinhood Chain can continue to expand applications around these assets, and meme stocks will also have more stock themes and liquidity foundations to draw upon. In the past, such models mainly focused on stock price mapping, but as real stock rights gradually enter on-chain, the connection between meme stocks and tokenized U.S. stocks will deepen further.

However, the new market space does not mean that the existing Stock Tokens on Robinhood Chain currently meet the SEC's requirements. Official documents from Robinhood show that Stock Tokens are issued by Robinhood Assets Jersey, classified as tokenized debt securities that primarily provide economic exposure to the underlying stocks, where holders do not directly own the legal or beneficial rights to the listed companies, and these products cannot be sold to U.S. persons. Other stock tokens in the market also face similar situations; while some products adopt 1:1 underlying asset support, they still lack alignment with this SEC framework in aspects such as full shareholder rights, issuing entities, trading access, and issuer arrangements.

Therefore, mainstream stock tokens that can be freely traded on-chain at this stage cannot be directly classified as eligible U.S. tokenized stocks under the TSV framework. The SEC's new regulations will raise market attention on stock tokenization, RWA, and meme stocks in the short term, while also elevating product standards in this space. As real stock rights, compliant trading, and on-chain liquidity gradually meld, the thematic basis and tradable asset range for meme stocks could further expand.

Conclusion

Overall, while the SEC's innovative exemption still has limitations such as duration, trading scale, and participating entities, it has already provided a clearer institutional space for the development of tokenized U.S. stocks in the U.S. market. In light of obstacles faced in advancing related legislation, the SEC has utilized existing regulatory authority to allow eligible tokenized stocks to engage in on-chain trading, indicating that stock tokenization has further transitioned from early product experimentation to concrete regulatory practice.

For the crypto market, the entrance of real U.S. stocks onto the chain will further expand the range of assets that public blockchains can support, generating new demand in areas such as custody, identity verification, oracle services, permitted AMM, and liquidity management. Assets like ONDO and UNI have already gained market attention, and Robinhood Chain, along with previously active meme stocks, may attract funding attention once more. Meanwhile, mainstream stock tokens still face discrepancies with the SEC's framework regarding shareholder rights, issuance structures, and trading access, leading to future market focus on platforms capable of launching on-chain products that closely align with real stock rights.

For tokenized U.S. stocks, the significance of this policy change lies in the U.S. market beginning to verify how real stock rights, public blockchains, and on-chain liquidity can be integrated in a controlled manner. Current restrictions on the number of underlying assets, transaction volumes, and participating entities can help mitigate the direct impact of new trading structures on traditional markets while accumulating real operational data for regulatory agencies. As issues surrounding price discovery, liquidity, technical stability, and investor protection are continuously validated in actual trading, the SEC can adjust long-term rules and applicability accordingly. If this model can operate stably, blockchain technology may extend further from tokenized stocks to securities issuance, custody, trading, clearing, and settlement, providing a more robust regulatory basis and market foundation for the U.S. financial system to evolve towards a more comprehensive on-chain integration.

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