Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize Inc., speaks at the Messari Mainnet Summit held in New York, USA on Thursday, September 21, 2023.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Securitization Shares soared on Thursday after federal regulators gave the green light for the issuance of tokenized stocks on some U.S. trading platforms.
Tokenized Names was last up 14%. At its peak, it rose 24%.
Earlier in the day, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a temporary pathway to restrict trading in tokenized U.S.-listed stocks. The order is not a formal regulatory change, but will remain in effect for five years.
SECZ 5 day chart
“The innovation exemption is designed to address the challenges that prevent responsible innovation from taking root in the United States, while providing investor protection and market integrity standards,” SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in a statement.
Tokenization refers to the process of registering ownership of real-world assets, such as bonds and stocks, on a digital distributed ledger. This technology allows financial assets to be traded near closing prices, giving tokenized securities an advantage over traditional securities.
Securitize became the first major tokenization company to go public in the US in early July. According to Needham Securities, the company has about 9% of the tokenization market in assets under management, making it a driving force in reaping the benefits of the real-world asset tokenization boom.
The total market value of tokenized assets surged to $38.51 billion as of Thursday afternoon, an increase of more than 70% over the past year, according to data provider RWA.xyz.
“We believe the long-term leader will be the platform that can secure the broadest instant customer base,” Needham analyst John Todaro wrote last week. “SECZ has done this by launching two funds with BlackRock, Apollo, KKR and others, and has infrastructure partnerships with Computershare and the New York Stock Exchange.”
He initiated coverage on the stock with a buy rating.
