Updated September 23, 2026: The Federal Register published the Securities and Exchange Commission’s temporary tokenized-stock exemption on September 22 as Document 2026-19388, 91 FR 60168. The publication formally records an order the SEC issued on September 17; it is not a second exemption, an operator announcement, or evidence that trading has begun.
The order, Release No. 34-106402 and File No. 4-927, creates temporary, conditional relief for a narrow market structure. A qualifying Tokenized Securities Venue, or TSV, may receive relief from the Exchange Act definition of an “exchange,” while a qualifying Covered Firm may receive relief from the “dealer” definition.
The framework concerns permissioned trading of tokenized National Market System stocks through automated market maker liquidity pools. It does not establish open DeFi stock trading. Eligible tokenized stock also excludes instruments that provide only synthetic exposure.
September 17 issuance and September 22 publication are different events
The SEC issued the order on September 17, 2026. The Federal Register then published it on September 22, 2026. That later publication resolves the procedural publication question that remained open when this article first appeared, but it does not change the order into a new decision or show that a venue has launched.
The order’s explicit Section V and conclusion state that both exemptions are effective from September 17, 2026 through September 17, 2031. However, the Federal Register narrative also says the order is “set to expire five years after publication.” Those statements conflict. This article does not silently recalculate or resolve that source-text inconsistency; it reports the explicit date range while preserving the caveat.
The Federal Register also warns that its XML rendition is an unofficial informational version and directs readers to the official PDF. The Federal Register publication and the SEC-issued order support the explicit September 17, 2026–September 17, 2031 date range, subject to the wording conflict described above.
A conditional pilot, not evidence of live trading
The relief is bounded by conditions and does not amount to a blanket exemption from securities law. Anti-fraud and anti-manipulation obligations remain in place, and venue and participant access are conditioned.
A TSV must publish an operating notice at least 30 calendar days before it begins operating and notify SEC staff within one business day of publishing that notice. No operator or operating notice was identified in the official records reviewed for this update.
Those records also do not identify actual trading, an admitted-symbol list, liquidity, volume, or spreads. The order therefore establishes a legal route for a qualifying permissioned pilot, not proof that tokenized-stock trading is live under it.
The SEC is accepting comments, with no deadline stated in the reviewed order
The order requests public comment and provides electronic, email, and paper submission routes. The order text reviewed for this update does not state a comment deadline, so none should be inferred from the publication date.
The next verifiable milestones would be a named TSV operator, the required 30-day operating notice, the related notice to SEC staff, an admitted-symbol list, or operating data. Until one of those appears in an official record, the September 22 Federal Register publication should be understood as a formal publication milestone for the September 17 order—not as a market launch.
Investment disclaimer: This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal or tax advice. Digital assets are volatile, and all investment decisions and their consequences are your own responsibility.