Tokenisation and clearer rules
U.S. regulatory moves are bringing greater clarity to digital assets and tokenisation, while industry groups are testing tokenised settlement models—Ripple says it helped pioneer Korea's first tokenised government bond settlement and Galaxy Digital is asking the SEC to include automated market makers in a tokenisation exemption. These developments were reported by CBIZ and CoinGape. (cbiz.com) (coingape.com 1) (coingape.com 2)
Washington is drawing clearer lines around digital assets just as firms push tokenized versions of stocks and bonds deeper into mainstream finance. (sec.gov) On March 17, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a joint interpretation on crypto assets, laying out a taxonomy for digital commodities, stablecoins, digital securities, collectibles, and tools. The Securities and Exchange Commission said the guidance explains when a crypto asset is a security, when it is not, and how federal securities laws apply to staking, airdrops, mining, and wrapped tokens. (sec.gov) Tokenisation means putting a traditional asset like a share, bond, or fund interest onto blockchain rails so it can move and settle as a digital token. CBIZ said pending U.S. bills would keep the same legal treatment for those assets, with tokenised equity and debt still under Securities and Exchange Commission rules and digital commodities under Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight. (cbiz.com) The main U.S. proposals now in circulation include the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, according to CBIZ. CBIZ said the draft framework would cover issuance, trading, custody, disclosures, and customer-asset segregation, while treating tokenisation as a delivery method rather than a new asset class. (cbiz.com) That policy push is colliding with a practical question: whether blockchain-native trading systems can handle regulated securities. On April 14, 2026, Galaxy Digital asked the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Task Force to let a defined class of automated market makers operate under a tokenisation exemption and argued those systems are not “exchanges” and liquidity providers are not “dealers” under the Exchange Act. (sec.gov) Automated market makers are trading pools that use software formulas instead of the buy-and-sell order books used by stock exchanges. In its April 14 letter, Galaxy said its tokenized GLXY Class A common stock carries the same legal and financial rights as its existing shares and that onchain trading could cut settlement from days to seconds, lower costs, and create an auditable record. (sec.gov) Traditional market firms are pushing back. In a March 30, 2026 letter, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said automated market makers can involve slippage, conflicts for liquidity providers, unclear governance, weak manipulation controls, and other risks that would need to be addressed before tokenized securities trading could fit securities law. (sifma.org) Outside the United States, firms are already testing tokenised settlement in regulated settings. Ripple said on April 15, 2026 that it partnered with Kyobo Life Insurance in South Korea to enable tokenised government bond transactions through Ripple Custody, with settlement moving from a typical two-day cycle toward near real-time execution. (ripple.com) Ripple said the South Korea project will also assess the technical and regulatory feasibility of tokenised Treasury settlement and could later connect to stablecoin-based payment rails operating around the clock. The company described the deal as its first collaboration with a leading insurance institution in South Korea. (ripple.com) The next test is whether U.S. regulators turn guidance into exemptions, registrations, or final rules that let tokenised assets trade at scale without rewriting the investor protections that govern ordinary stocks and bonds. (sec.gov)
