SEC Creates a Temporary Framework for Onchain Stock Trading
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a significant step toward bringing regulated equities onto blockchain networks, issuing temporary and conditional exemptive relief for certain Tokenized Securities Venues, or TSVs.
The SEC's Sept. 17, 2026, order provides a five-year exemption from the Exchange Act's definition of an “exchange” for qualifying venues that use automated market makers (AMMs) and liquidity pools to facilitate trading in tokenized National Market System (NMS) stocks. The order also provides a temporary exemption from the “dealer” definition for certain liquidity providers participating in those pools.
The framework does not create unrestricted stock trading on any blockchain. Instead, the SEC has established conditions that qualifying venues must satisfy, including requirements covering smart contracts, participant access, tokenized-stock rights, disclosures and coordination with the listing exchange.
Read the SEC's Innovation Exemption order
How a Tokenized Securities Venue Works
Under the SEC framework, a Tokenized Securities Venue brings buyers and sellers together through AMM liquidity pools. These pools use smart contracts to facilitate trades rather than relying entirely on the conventional market structure used by traditional stock exchanges.
The blockchain itself must be a public, permissionless distributed ledger, and the smart contracts used by the venue must be public and auditable. At the same time, access to trading through the venue is permissioned, meaning participants must meet the venue's access requirements.
This distinction is important. The underlying blockchain can be publicly accessible, while the regulated securities market operating through it can impose permissioning requirements on participants and token transfers.
The order also requires a TSV to stop trading a tokenized stock when trading in the underlying stock is halted on its primary listing exchange. The venue must additionally publish information about its operations and trading activities.
Tokenized Stocks Must Represent Real Securities
One of the central conditions of the SEC's exemption concerns what a tokenized stock actually represents.
A qualifying tokenized NMS stock must provide holders with the same rights and privileges as the equivalent traditional stock. The SEC specifically identifies rights such as receiving dividends and exercising voting rights.
That requirement separates the framework from products that merely attempt to track a stock's price.
The SEC's order therefore does not provide the same treatment to synthetic assets that simply mirror the performance of a stock. The framework is focused on tokenized NMS stocks that represent the underlying securities under the conditions specified by the order.
There are also provisions for securities tokenized by unaffiliated third parties. Before making such a tokenized stock available, the TSV must notify the issuer and provide an opportunity for the issuer to object.
Solana Already Has Tokenized Equity Infrastructure
The regulatory development arrives as Solana already hosts a growing tokenized-equity ecosystem.
Solana's own institutional RWA overview says that, as of late July 2026, 97% of all-time onchain tokenized-equity spot volume had settled on Solana. The network also hosted tokenized stocks, ETFs and other real-world assets through multiple platforms.
Solana's August ecosystem report subsequently said the network's RWA value had surpassed $4 billion, while tokenized-equity activity continued expanding. The report said Raydium had processed more than $4 billion in cumulative tokenized-stock volume through August.
The ecosystem includes several different approaches to tokenized securities. Solana's July overview describes Superstate's Opening Bell as an infrastructure model for SEC-registered equity tokenization directly on Solana, with Superstate acting as registered transfer agent and ownership updates occurring onchain as tokens move between wallets.
Solana's institutional RWA overview
A 2025 Solana Proposal Helped Shape the Conversation
The SEC's current framework also follows earlier industry proposals for bringing regulated equities onto public blockchains.
In April 2025, the Solana Policy Institute, Superstate and Orca submitted Project Open to the SEC's Crypto Task Force. The proposal called for equity securities to be issued and traded on public blockchain networks, with token shares subject to securities-law requirements and compliance controls.
The proposal envisioned registered transfer-agent infrastructure, public blockchain settlement and permissioning mechanisms designed to restrict who could hold and transfer tokenized securities.
The current SEC order contains several concepts that overlap with that broader architecture, although the regulatory order is the SEC's own framework and imposes its own conditions.
SEC filing for the Solana Policy Institute, Superstate and Orca Project Open proposal
What the Exemption Means for Market Makers
The SEC's order also addresses liquidity providers.
Certain liquidity providers that supply tokenized NMS stock to AMM liquidity pools using proprietary capital can receive temporary relief from the Exchange Act's dealer definition, subject to the order's conditions. The relief covers certain activities that could otherwise indicate dealing activity, including quoting prices to customers or entering agreements to provide committed capital.
That creates a defined regulatory pathway for market participants providing liquidity to tokenized-stock pools.
However, the exemption is not unlimited. Tokenized securities venues face requirements around disclosure, recordkeeping, access, trading limits and other conditions. The SEC also placed limits on the number of securities and trading volume that can be handled under the relief.
The CFTC Also Broadens Relief for Passive Software
The SEC announcement arrived alongside a separate development at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
On Sept. 17, 2026, the CFTC announced a no-action position broadly available to providers of passive software that facilitates users' access to registered futures commission merchants, introducing brokers and designated contract markets. The relief concerns introducing-broker and associated-person registration requirements, subject to specified conditions.
The development builds on the CFTC's March 2026 no-action position involving Phantom's self-custodial wallet software. The newer September action makes similar relief broadly available to qualifying passive software providers rather than limiting it to Phantom.
CFTC September 2026 passive-software relief
The Exemption Is Temporary
The SEC's action is not a permanent change to U.S. securities-market rules.
The exemptions expire five years after publication, and the SEC is requesting public comment on the framework and possible next steps. The Commission has therefore created a temporary regulatory pathway while it evaluates how onchain securities markets should fit into the broader U.S. market structure.
For Solana, the significance is that much of the infrastructure described by the regulatory framework already exists on the network. Solana has tokenized equities, regulated transfer-agent infrastructure and permissioning tools operating within its ecosystem, while the SEC's order establishes conditions under which qualifying venues can receive temporary relief.
The next phase will depend on how issuers, venues, liquidity providers and regulators use the framework, how the market develops within its volume and access limits, and what changes the SEC ultimately makes after reviewing public comments.
Solana's tokenization and internet capital markets infrastructure
