SEC Chair: Tokenized securities still subject to federal securities laws; distributed ledger technology may bring multiple opportunities to the financial industry

Odaily Planet Daily News: On March 12, the chairman of the U.S. SEC, Paul Atkins, stated during the All-In Podcast that from his perspective, distributed ledger technology (DLT) offers many potential advantages for the financial services industry. The industry is currently at a critical stage, with the possibility of achieving T+0 settlement, meaning almost real-time delivery and payment, or even directly completing payments through on-chain digital assets. He described this prospect as “very exciting,” but also noted that to prevent risks such as fraud, the system may still need to implement certain “slowdown mechanisms.”

However, he also pointed out that this model still faces some challenges, such as liquidity issues. In traditional markets, how the concept of “best bid and ask prices” should be reflected under new trading architectures remains an important issue to resolve.

Atkins emphasized that the fundamental principle of the SEC is: if an asset is inherently a security, even if tokenized, its legal nature remains a security and must comply with federal securities laws. At the same time, regulators have a responsibility to ensure that existing rules can adapt to new application scenarios. As trading purposes and settlement methods change, the regulatory system also needs to make corresponding adjustments.

He stated that the SEC is currently reviewing existing regulatory rules on a case-by-case basis to assess whether they can accommodate emerging technological environments and will update the system as necessary.