Tokenized stocks may be onchain, but the SEC still wants the keys
The US Securities and Exchange Commission outlined how tokenized equities can exist inside US market safeguards, favoring broker-led custody over crypto-native self-custody.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Trading and Markets Division on Wednesday laid out how broker-dealers can custody tokenized stocks and bonds under existing customer protection rules, signaling that blockchain-based crypto asset securities will be slotted into traditional securities safeguards rather than treated as a new category.
The division said it would not object to broker-dealers deeming themselves in possession of crypto asset securities under existing customer protection rules, as long as they meet a set of operational, security and governance conditions. This applies only to crypto securities, including tokenized stocks or bonds.
While the statement is not a rule, it provides clarity on how US regulators expect tokenized securities to fit within traditional market safeguards.
