The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unveiled its most groundbreaking and experimental regulatory easing measure in the history of capital markets. The essence of this so-called 'Innovation Exemption' is to allow third parties to issue and trade 'tokenized stocks,' blockchain-based assets that 100% track the price of major U.S. listed companies such as Nvidia, Tesla, and Apple, even without their official consent or approval. This is considered a significant turning point that fundamentally shakes up the existing paradigm of securities regulation.

Within the traditional financial framework, launching derivative products or linked products based on a particular company’s securities usually required close legal contracts and disclosure procedures with the issuer. However, the SEC has explicitly categorized tokenized securities into two types – 'issuer-acting' and 'third-party generated' – and decided to grant an unprecedented regulatory exemption to the latter. This reflects the strong intent of U.S. regulatory authorities to directly integrate the $130 billion global decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem into the institutional capital market.

This measure is expected to rapidly fragment and expand liquidity, traditionally centered in centralized exchanges, into an on-chain capital market. Most importantly, with the ability to trade major U.S. stocks 24/7 on DeFi platforms powered solely by smart contract code without human intervention, global retail investors are expected to gain unprecedented access.

The tokenization of blockchain-based Real World Assets (RWA) is not just a technological experiment but a significant trend involving astronomical capital flows. According to in-depth analysis data from leading global investment banks (IBs) and market research firms, the tokenized asset market, currently limited to government bonds and some funds, is projected to expand rapidly to at least $2 trillion to as much as $10 trillion by 2030. This is an overwhelming figure that could account for a significant portion of the global GDP.

In particular, innovative efficiency improvements will be made in terms of payment and settlement cycles. The existing standard settlement cycle in traditional securities markets, 'T+1' (settlement the day after the order), will transition to 'T+0' (real-time immediate settlement) through blockchain's instantaneous consensus algorithms, and approximately 43.5% of settlement costs are estimated to be saved in this process. The cost savings resulting from minimized intermediary involvement will directly translate into profits for issuers and investors.

Accordingly, Wall Street's traditional financial giants are also moving quickly. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has already begun constructing a dedicated trading platform for tokenized stocks and ETFs, hybridizing blockchain technology. Nasdaq is also developing its own protocol layer that allows listed companies to have greater control and monitoring authority over tokenized stocks. The acquisition of Equiniti, a transfer agent company that tracks ownership and distributes dividends for traditional securities, by cryptocurrency exchange Bullish for a staggering $4.2 billion, symbolically demonstrates this infrastructural transformation.

While the SEC’s ‘Innovation Exemption’ aims to maximize capital efficiency through deregulation, it also comes with a strong warning that it could disarm investor protection mechanisms that the traditional stock market has built over decades. The most critical issue is that third-party issued stock tokens may not fully guarantee traditional shareholder rights, such as voting rights or dividends. The SEC is considering conditional approval that would revoke listing rights for tokens lacking a dividend payment mechanism, but enforcing this in a decentralized environment is technically challenging.

Security and regulatory gaps are also undeniable risks. Third-party issued stock tokens essentially mimic the price volatility of disclosed stocks, acting as 'Synthetic Assets,' making them susceptible to blind spots in financial crime prevention systems like Anti-Money Laundering (AML) or Know Your Customer (KYC). Furthermore, if liquidity is extremely fragmented between existing centralized exchanges and on-chain DeFi pools, there is an inherent risk of market price discovery distortion or large-scale asset loss due to smart contract hacks on specific platforms.

Nevertheless, the legal systematization is already on an irreversible track, as the U.S. Senate Banking Committee passed the 'Clarity Act,' which grants oversight of the overall virtual asset industry to the CFTC while retaining regulatory authority over digital securities for the SEC. The future success of capital markets will depend on how precisely an on-chain monitoring system can be built to maximize the borderless liquidity and immediate settlement efficiency of blockchain while protecting individual investors from hacking and fraudulent transactions.