The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Thursday that it would provide a temporary pathway for limited trading of some tokenized U.S.-listed stocks. This arrangement is not a formal rule change, but it will be in effect for up to five years. Following the announcement, the stock price of Securitize, a company that had recently gone public in the U.S., significantly rose.

Securitize rose by 24% at one point during the day, followed by a narrowing of gains to around 14%. Market reactions indicate that investors see this decision as an important advancement in the tokenized securities business, which is particularly beneficial for companies that have already made arrangements for related issuances and infrastructure.

Five-year temporary channel implemented

SEC indicates that this 'innovation exemption' is aimed at addressing the long-standing difficulty of implementing compliance innovations in the United States, while also maintaining investor protection and market integrity requirements. The scope of this relaxation is still limited, targeting tokenized publicly traded stocks on certain platforms.

Tokenization generally refers to the process of recording ownership of real-world assets such as bonds and stocks on a digital ledger. Supporters believe that this approach helps to extend transaction times and improve the efficiency of asset turnover, and therefore is seen as a supplementary form outside of the traditional securities system.

Securitize Expectations for Benefits Rise

Securitize is one of the major tokenization companies that went public in the United States at the beginning of July. In terms of asset management scale, the company currently accounts for about 9% of the tokenization market. As regulatory policies become more lenient, markets expect such companies to benefit more directly from the expansion of RWA.

As previously mentioned, Needham Securities, long-term leaders are more likely to emerge on platforms that can attract a wide range of institutional clients. The institution noted that Securitize has launched funds with BlackRock, Apollo, KKR, etc., and has established infrastructure cooperation with Computershare and the New York Stock Exchange.

The scale of tokenized assets continues to expand.

RWA.xyz Data shows that as of Thursday afternoon, the total market value of tokenized assets has risen to $38.51 billion, an increase of over 70% from a year ago. Regulatory pilots and institutional participation remain the two main drivers behind the expansion of this sector.

This time, SEC has provided a temporary trading path. Although it does not constitute a comprehensive rule adjustment yet, it has opened up space for further testing of tokenized stocks in the US market.