SEC Chair: Tokenized securities still fall under securities laws, and distributed ledger technology offers many potential benefits to the financial industry

Mars Finance News: On March 12, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said during an appearance on the All-In Podcast, “From my perspective, distributed ledger technology (DLT) offers many potential benefits to the financial services industry, and we are at a critical point where T+0 settlement—meaning almost instant delivery and payment, or even payment through on-chain digital assets—could become a reality. This is very exciting. To prevent issues like fraud, we might even need to set some speed bumps. However, there are also challenges, such as liquidity concerns. In traditional markets, the concepts of best bid and ask prices—what do they mean in this new system? That’s one of the issues we need to address. Our principle is: if an asset is inherently a security, even if tokenized, it remains a security, and federal securities laws still apply. But regulators have a responsibility to ensure our rules are truly applicable to new practical uses. As trading purposes and delivery methods evolve, we need to make corresponding adjustments. We need to adapt our framework to fit the new technological environment. That’s exactly what we are working on now—reviewing our regulatory rules one by one to ensure they can keep pace with emerging technologies. The SEC is coordinating regulation with the CFTC. For example, if an asset is tokenized securities, it falls under the SEC’s regulatory scope; if it’s digital currency, digital tokens, digital tools, or digital collectibles, then it falls under the CFTC’s jurisdiction.”