SEC Chairman: Tokenized Securities Still Subject to Securities Laws, Distributed Ledger Technology Holds Many Potential Benefits for the Financial Industry

BlockBeats News, March 12th, during an appearance on the All-In Podcast, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins stated, "From my perspective, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has many potential benefits for the financial services industry, and we are at a tipping point where we could achieve T+0 settlement—meaning nearly instant settlement and payment, even using on-chain digital assets. This is very exciting. To prevent issues like fraud, we may even need to establish some speed bumps."

However, there are challenges, such as liquidity issues. The concept of best bid and ask prices in traditional markets, what does it mean in this new system? This is one of the issues we need to address.

Our principle is: if an asset is fundamentally a security, even if it is tokenized, it is still a security, and federal securities laws still apply. However, regulators have a responsibility to ensure that our rules truly apply to new practical applications. As the purpose of transactions and modes of delivery change, we also need to make corresponding adjustments. We need to adjust the system to truly fit the new technological environment. This is what we are working on right now—reviewing our regulatory rules one by one to ensure they can adapt to the development of emerging technologies.

The SEC is coordinating regulation with the CFTC. For example, if an asset is a tokenized security, it falls under the SEC's rule system; whereas if it is a cryptocurrency, digital token, digital asset, or digital collectible, it falls under the CFTC's regulatory purview."