The US SEC unveils a five-year "Innovation Exemption" to free platforms that facilitate blockchain and tokenized stock trading from many stock exchange rules (Hannah Lang/Reuters)

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has introduced a five-year "Innovation Exemption" that allows platforms facilitating blockchain and tokenized stock trading to operate without being subject to many stock exchange rules. This exemption, according to the SEC, is a temporary measure to bring America's capital markets into the digital age by facilitating on-chain trading of certain tokenized stocks.

The exemption, which was announced by SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins, will permit Tokenized Securities Venues (TSVs) to trade tokenized National Market System (NMS) stock using innovative permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools. The SEC has invited public comment on all aspects of the Innovation Exemption to help inform further changes.

The move is seen as a significant step forward for the Commission's work to open its capital markets for tokenized securities. According to The Block, the SEC's innovation exemption is being positioned as a response to the Senate's failure to advance crypto legislation.

Brief written by urgent.news from Techmeme, CoinDesk, The Block, SEC Press Releases — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.