The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has unveiled a temporary regulatory framework allowing secondary market trading of tokenised U.S. stocks.

On Sept. 17 local time, blockchain media outlet U.Today reported that the move is seen as one of the SEC’s biggest steps toward enabling Wall Street stocks to trade on public blockchains.

The key point is that it brought trading structures used in decentralised finance, or DeFi, into an experiment in regulated securities markets. The SEC allowed trading through tokenised stock vendors, or TSVs, that meet certain conditions. It also allowed the use of automated market maker, or AMM, liquidity pools. AMMs execute trades through smart contracts and asset pools rather than the order-book system used by traditional securities exchanges.

The SEC added that the smart contracts supporting the exchange structure must be public, auditable and operate on a public, permissionless distributed ledger. This means incorporating part of the public blockchain infrastructure built by the crypto industry into an experimental trading structure for the U.S. listed stock market.

Michael Saylor (마이클 세일러), chairman of Strategy, called the move a “major breakthrough.” He highlighted that the innovation exemption enables tokenisation of Strategy’s MSTR and STRC on qualifying venues, allowing U.S. investors to trade them on-chain around the clock.

Saylor viewed this as an important change for both digital credit and U.S. capital markets. He said that while U.S. stock markets have operated around set trading hours and traditional exchange infrastructure, the move matters because it opens a route for some securities to trade in on-chain markets based on public blockchains.

The SEC has already signalled such a direction internally. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins previously said market participants should be able to experiment with tokenised securities trading on public blockchains using AMMs and decentralised applications.

The SEC’s treatment of liquidity providers also stands out. It decided to temporarily and conditionally ease application of the Securities Exchange Act definition of “dealer” for some participants who supply tokenised stocks they hold into AMM liquidity pools. The approach tests whether investors can adapt liquidity-provision methods widely used in crypto markets to regulated securities markets.

The announcement does not mean free DeFi trading for all U.S. stocks. The SEC said it will set limits on the number of tokenised stocks that can circulate through TSVs and on trading volume. It made clear that deregulation will not lead to a full opening.

Given the structure, the move is closer to an experiment than institutionalisation. The SEC has effectively set up a five-year laboratory for crypto-based companies and traditional financial firms to test, under regulatory supervision, whether public blockchain infrastructure can handle parts of the U.S. stock market. Attention is expected to focus on whether tokenised stock trading within limited scope can secure liquidity and whether public blockchain-based trading structures can operate within regulated securities markets.

The SEC’s innovation exemption enables 24/7 onchain trading of tokenized $STRC and $MSTR for U.S. investors through qualifying venues. A major breakthrough for Digital Credit and American capital markets. https://t.co/sLIiSV5J9Q