The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a draft proposal on September 1 to overhaul federal rules for transfer agents. The US capital markets regulator is taking initial steps to integrate blockchain technology into the national securities administration system.
A 60-day public comment period will open once the official document is published in the Federal Register. The SEC’s move touches the very foundations of securities administration, which have remained practically unchanged for decades. US transfer agent rules have not seen a major overhaul since the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Changing How Ownership Is Recorded
Stock tokenization has already been operating outside US jurisdiction through custodial or synthetic structures. In this model, a platform holds the underlying security while retail investors simply purchase claim tokens representing the asset’s value.
Bitget Research Chief Analyst Ryan Lee emphasized that the SEC proposal targets a far more fundamental issue. The key difference lies not in the token itself, but in how ownership is legally recorded.
Modernizing transfer agent guidelines would pave the way for legal ownership on a blockchain to appear in official records, potentially placing it on equal footing with conventional stock recordkeeping systems.
However, the rule has clear limitations. Adopting the proposal would not automatically make blockchain tokens underlying securities, nor would token holders immediately receive voting rights or regular dividend distributions.
Infrastructure for New Demand
The SEC’s move comes as the market shows strong interest in alternative stock instruments. Crypto exchange Bitget recorded $1.16 billion in tokenized stock trading volume between June 2 and July 19, with these non-crypto assets accounting for 20% of the exchange’s total trading volume.
Interest has grown rapidly. Over the past 30 days, the number of tokenized stock product holders across five different platforms surged 92% to 752,000 users.
While the draft transfer agent rules do not resolve all legal complexities surrounding US stock tokenization, they lay the groundwork. As Ryan Lee put it, the overhaul modernizes the plumbing infrastructure required to build an authoritative tokenized register in the future.
Sourced from crypto.news.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice. Cryptocurrency assets are highly volatile and carry significant risk. Always do your own research (DYOR) and never invest more than you can afford to lose.