What the SEC allowed
A tokenized share is an ordinary listed share recorded on a blockchain. Trading one has been difficult. A venue that brings buyers and sellers together falls inside the Exchange Act’s definition of an exchange, which carries registration with it, and a firm that supplies the other side of trades usually counts as a dealer, which carries its own.
On September 17, 2026 the SEC set both aside for five years in Release No. 34-106402, which it calls the Innovation Exemption. It covers a tokenized securities venue, meaning one that runs automated market maker liquidity pools and sets the standards for who may trade in them. It also covers the firms that put their own money into those pools, provided they trade only for themselves and never hold a customer’s assets.
The relief expires five years after the order is published. The SEC is asking for comment on it under File Number 4-927 and set no closing date.
The limits
A venue is limited in how much it may carry. For the largest stocks, meaning the S&P 500, the Russell 1000 and certain exchange-traded products, it may trade at most 75 symbols, and its own volume in any one of them may not pass 0.25 percent of that stock’s average daily volume in the prior month. For everything else the limits are 250 symbols and 2.5 percent. A venue has to add its affiliates’ symbols and volume to its own, so splitting into several venues does not avoid the caps.
A tokenized share must carry the rights of the share it represents. A venue must check that the tokenized share gives its holder the same rights and privileges as an ordinary share of the same class. If someone other than the company created the token, the venue has to tell the company first and give it a chance to object. The smart contracts behind the pools must be public and auditable and deployed on a public blockchain, and the venue has to post a notice about how it operates at least 30 days before it starts trading, then tell the SEC within one business day of posting it.
Corviniti helps with crypto and digital asset accounting
The order changes who may run a trading venue. It changes no accounting rule. What it does is make more of these businesses possible, and they share a set of accounting questions.
A tokenized share carries the same rights as the ordinary share, so it is still an equity security and is accounted for as one. A crypto asset that is not a security follows different rules: ASU 2023-08 measures qualifying crypto assets at fair value through earnings and gives them their own presentation and disclosure. A company holding both runs two sets of rules in one ledger, and what the asset is decides which set applies.
A liquidity provider relying on this order also has to keep records showing it can cover the losses its trading could produce, and the order names financial statements as an example. That means a monthly close and a set of statements produced through the year.
Corviniti does this work. We handle accounting for digital asset and bitcoin mining companies, including fair value measurement and the disclosures that go with it. We handle fintech accounting, where customer funds and revenue presentation come in. We build the monthly close and the statements behind both, and for companies that report to the SEC we prepare Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K.