SEC readies narrow temporary exemption to pilot tokenized stock trading on blockchain

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a temporary regulatory exemption that would permit qualifying firms to test blockchain-based trading of tokenized shares using automated market makers and crypto-native settlement systems, potentially allowing traditional equities to operate on crypto infrastructure under limited regulatory supervision ^[1].

Commissioner Hester Peirce has pushed back on expectations that the exemption would open the market broadly, saying the proposed "innovation exemption" is expected to remain limited in scope and apply only to tokenized versions of actual equity securities already trading in secondary markets, not to instruments that merely track stock-market movements; she made related comments on X and in public remarks reported by multiple outlets ^{[2] [3] [4]}.

Taken together, the agency language and Peirce's statements indicate the initiative is intended as a controlled pilot for regulatory data collection and limited onchain equity experiments rather than an immediate path to unrestricted tokenized stock trading ^{[1] [4]}.

If finalized, the exemption would create a confined testing framework for tokenized equities while maintaining a narrow regulatory scope, per SEC reporting and commissioner comments ^{[1] [3]}.