SEC Announces Five-Year 'Innovation Exemption' for Tokenized U.S. Listed Stocks
Perkins Coie reports the SEC announced on September 17, 2026 a five-year 'Innovation Exemption' to facilitate trading of tokenized versions of stocks listed on major U.S. exchanges; the operative terms are not set out in the source.
On September 17, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a five-year "Innovation Exemption" intended to facilitate trading of tokenized versions of stocks listed on major U.S. stock exchanges and markets, according to a Perkins Coie client alert. The excerpt available here does not set out the exemption's operative terms — eligible token structures, permitted intermediaries, custody and settlement arrangements, or disclosure and listing conditions — so its actual scope should be read from the SEC's own materials before being relied on.
Why sophisticated counsel should care: a multi-year safe harbor for tokenized public equities sits at the intersection of securities regulation and digital-asset market structure, and it is framed as temporary ("innovation" with an end date). Issuers with listed stock, and the exchanges, broker-dealers and transfer agents that might list, distribute or intermediate tokenized versions, will need to assess investor disclosure, book-entry and recordkeeping obligations, and how tokenized exposure interacts with existing share classes and settlement arrangements.
Watch next: publication of the exemption's full terms and conditions, the first exchanges or intermediaries to rely on it, and any follow-on SEC rulemaking on tokenized securities.