Overview
- The SEC issued a temporary, conditional exemption on Sept. 17 that lets permissioned Tokenized Securities Venues list and trade tokenized U.S. stocks under strict transparency, recordkeeping and technology limits.
- CFTC Chair Michael Selig urged markets to prepare for ‘mass tokenization’ and continuous trading in remarks on Sept. 22–23 that framed on‑chain finance and 24/7 markets as likely drivers of major market change.
- The CFTC has already expanded eligible collateral to include stablecoins issued by national trust banks and is seeking input on how to allow responsible stablecoin use in clearing and exchange activity.
- Both agencies are moving forward with supervised experiments because congressional market‑structure legislation has stalled, so the tests are meant to collect operational data before formal rulemaking.
- If pilots scale, trading could see faster settlement windows, longer operating hours and new custody and surveillance needs, which will affect investors, clearinghouses and traditional exchanges while regulators assess guardrails.