Policy Friday: September 10 – September 17, 2026

SEC granted temporary 5-year exemptive relief allowing Tokenized Securities Venues to trade tokenized US stocks via permissioned AMM liquidity pools on public blockchains, removing exchange registration barriers for on-chain equity trading.

This is a watershed moment for enterprise Ethereum adoption. The SEC has explicitly cleared a pathway for regulated, institutional-grade secondary trading of tokenized securities on public, permissionless blockchains (implicitly Ethereum given market dominance). The exemption legitimizes permissioned DeFi infrastructure for capital markets, directly enabling financial institutions to deploy trading venues on Ethereum while maintaining investor protections through conditions (audit requirements, issuer notification, symbol limits). This transforms Ethereum from a speculative sandbox into a regulated venue for trillions in equities.

SEC grants temporary exemptive relief for onchain tokenized stock trading via Tokenized Securities Venues, creating the first regulatory pathway for institutions to build and operate Ethereum-based trading infrastructure for regulated securities.

This is the most significant U.S. regulatory opening for institutional Ethereum adoption to date. It explicitly permits onchain trading of tokenized equities in a permissioned environment, removing the 'exchange' and 'dealer' registration barriers that previously blocked Ethereum-based trading platforms. Institutions can now plan and build compliant infrastructure knowing the SEC will not classify their TSV as an unregistered exchange, directly enabling enterprise adoption of blockchain infrastructure for capital markets.

SEC issued time-limited exemptions for 'tokenized securities venues' to trade onchain stocks, establishing the first formal regulatory framework for institutional-grade tokenized equity trading on blockchain.

The SEC created a time-limited exemption for trading tokenized NMS stocks through certain exempt entities. Trading firms, custodians and issuers can use the period to test tokenized equity activity on public blockchains, subject to the exemption's conditions. The SEC says the exemption will gather data as it considers permanent rules.

SEC approved a temporary Innovation Exemption allowing limited onchain trading of tokenized stocks on compliant venues, with data-driven conditions designed to inform future permanent rulemaking.

The SEC granted exemptive relief for certain onchain securities trading venues. This gives market participants a defined route to test tokenized securities infrastructure, including on Ethereum, while the SEC gathers data. The relief does not establish permanent rules or remove the conditions attached to the exemption.

SEC Chairman Atkins outlined three parts of a proposed crypto regulatory agenda: Regulation Crypto Assets, updated transfer agent rules, and a framework for crypto custody.

This opens institutional capital access to Ethereum and other layer-1 blockchains by removing custody-as-a-blocker for regulated funds and advisers. Tokenized securities issuance and trading infrastructure become legally viable, directly enabling enterprise Ethereum use cases in capital markets. The explicit permission for self-custody and state trust custodians removes a decade-long regulatory limbo that prevented institutional adoption.