On September 17, after the Clarity Act was voted down by the Senate, the SEC issued a 60-page order: the Innovation Exemption. On the day the news broke, Robinhood rose 6%, and Securitize's stock SECZ surged as much as 22%. The market believed that "tokenized U.S. stocks are finally legal."
But after carefully reading the announcement, one finds that the conditions are truly restrictive.
The stock tokens with the largest trading volumes on the market are most likely outside the scope of the exemption. They are backed by real stocks, collateralized 1:1, and redeemable, but legally they are a debt issued by another company.
First, let's look at what the SEC said
First, a new type of institution called a TSV (Tokenized Securities Venue, which can be simply understood as a trading platform) does not need to register as an "exchange." Second, institutions that provide their own funds to AMM pools do not need to register as "market makers."
There are also restrictions on the number of stocks, though their importance is moderate, which is also why UNI directly pumped 15%.
Second is the definition of "tokenized NMS stocks." (NMS means listed on Nasdaq or the NYSE.)
The original wording is: a third party issuing to the market a security of its own to provide synthetic exposure to a certain stock — that does not count.
What this means is that the token must be that stock itself. The criterion is not "whether there is a real stock in the vault." Even if a real share of Nvidia is locked in the vault, the token in your hand may still be a debt owed to you by another company. What the SEC looks at is what this token legally is, not what is locked behind it.
So what counts? The same company equity, receiving the same dividends, exercising the same voting rights, and receiving the same residual assets in liquidation. All four are required.
1:1 is actually not difficult; the latter four are relatively difficult right now.
Under this standard, products fall into three categories
BlockBeats sorted through the current mainstream tokenized stock products to see which ones comply.
Category A: The token is that very share on the register
A listed company moves its shareholder register onto the chain, and the token in the wallet equals that share on the transfer agent's ledger.
Superstate, Securitize, and Figure are taking this path. These three are the closest to the SEC's requirements, but they are not fully compliant either.
Moreover, these few companies have few underlying assets to speculate on, and even fewer tradable stocks.
Category B: U.S. brokerage custody, but still custodial equity
Dinari comes very close: an SEC-registered transfer agent plus a broker-dealer subsidiary, with 724 tokenized U.S. stocks covering the entire S&P 500, claiming to offer voting rights, cash dividends, and USDC payouts. But it is still a custodial equity token, and it can circulate freely across multiple chains.
The U.S. stocks in a Backpack account are real brokerage positions, but they are not on-chain; the 20 tokens self-minted on Solana are officially defined as "claims on an SPV holding the underlying assets," but voting rights do not appear to have landed on the issuer's register. It also falls into the almost-there category.
Category C: Largest trading volume, but structurally out of scope
The common structure is: a third party (often an offshore subsidiary) issues a bond or certificate, real stocks are locked in the vault, and what you hold is that certificate. xStocks, Ondo, Binance bStock, and Robinhood's U.S. stock meme pool stocks all fall into this category, all are not open to Americans, and all lack voting rights.
For example, Robinhood stated in its documentation that the tokens do not grant investors any legal rights.
This is also why Robinhood CEO Vlad specifically said a few days ago that voting rights need to be added to stock tokens. He must have heard the SEC news in advance and put out the vision first.
All of the above products are 1:1, but more or less none of them fully comply with the SEC innovation exemption.
What are the tickers worth watching
From market feedback, the market still tends to view this document as bullish for tokenization. Regardless of whether there are qualifying products, capital is rushing in first.
The most obvious is the Robinhood Chain sector. After all, it started with U.S. stock memes, and the AI token using Nvidia as its underlying pool just hit an all-time high. Tickers with high market attention also include BONER (paired with HIMS), MEME (paired with AMC), and the platform PONS.
On Solana, market attention on Backpack has returned. After all, it is the main stock exchange promoted on Solana, and there is also a meme coin called just a backpack, using BP as its underlying pool. Its market cap is very small, so its gains are very large. BP is currently still a coin, but it is actually also a 1:1 stock, and the market still has expectations for it.
Mainstream altcoins are also performing well. Some previously strong coins like ZEC, NEAR, ENA, etc., are still leading the gains in this rebound.
In the community, everyone is still hoping that a stock meme golden dog will emerge in the next few days. Funds are temporarily concentrated in high-certainty targets, just waiting for a consensus to form around a golden dog with an innovative exemption concept.
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