US SEC Commissioner suggests cautiously advancing the innovation exemption for tokenized securities and raises key issues such as information disclosure systems

Hester M. Peirce, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, stated that a research initiative for a "regulatory exemption" for tokenized securities has been launched, allowing limited trading and technical experimentation for certain tokenized securities. This exemption plan will be more cautious than the "comprehensive exemption" proposed by the industry.

She believes it is worth exploring whether different types of tokenization models for securities can be tested under the innovation exemption framework and whether issuer consent is needed for third parties to issue tokenized versions of their stocks, in order to promote technological innovation while avoiding regulatory arbitrage and maintaining core investor protection mechanisms.

Hester M. Peirce also emphasized that regulators should not overly interfere with private capital allocation. The SEC is currently assessing several key issues, including: whether the existing information disclosure system is sufficient to cover the ownership structure of tokenized securities, the disclosure obligations of brokers and clearing agencies in the issuance of tokenized securities, the compatibility of atomic settlement with the current T+1 settlement rules, and the applicability of regulatory authority in the absence of intermediaries or under new intermediary structures.