SEC five-year plan prioritizes tokenized securities

The Securities and Exchange Commission published a draft Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2026–2030 that designates digital assets and blockchain as a standalone objective and sets out steps to develop a framework for tokenized securities. Two days after the plan was released, Jamie Selway, director of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets, told the Piper Sandler Global Exchange & Fintech Conference in New York that his division is developing a framework for listing and trading tokenized securities.

The plan describes blockchain as a technology with “the potential to revolutionize America’s financial infrastructure” and places digital assets alongside investor protection, capital formation and agency modernization. It commits the agency to a “rational, coherent, and principled approach” to drafting rules and guidance for tokenized offerings and on‑chain financial infrastructure. The document calls for custody, trading and staking services to operate under appropriate oversight without duplicative or conflicting requirements.

SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission staff are coordinating to resolve divergent rules on swap reporting, portfolio margining and product definitions. Selway framed the agency’s approach around the phrase “innovation without arbitrage,” and warned that venue shopping and excessive leverage for unsophisticated retail investors would undermine efforts to create compliant tokenized markets.

The plan follows staff actions this year that have advanced tokenization in securities policy. The agency has floated a contemplated innovation exemption for tokenized stocks, issued a staff statement in April giving self‑custody trading interfaces five years to obtain broker licenses, and approved the Nasdaq in March and the New York Stock Exchange in April to list and trade tokenized versions of select equities alongside traditional shares.

Jennie Levin, chief legal and operating officer at the Algorand Foundation and a former federal prosecutor, described the plan as reframing blockchain work from “crypto” to “market modernization,” saying that change alters how banks, asset managers and public companies evaluate blockchain projects. Levin argued that agency fragmentation has been a major friction point for institutional projects and said a unified token taxonomy would let firms make approval decisions earlier in their internal review processes.

On the legislative front, the CLARITY Act passed the House 294–134 in July 2025, cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15–9 in May and was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar in early June. The bill still requires 60 votes on the Senate floor before the August recess; some firms have recently reduced their probability estimates for 2026 passage.

If the plan’s objectives become operational policy, expected milestones include formal rule proposals for tokenized securities, measurable progress on SEC‑CFTC harmonization, a Senate floor vote on the CLARITY Act, institutional launches of tokenized products on public rails and more detailed guidance on custody and settlement. Market participants identify infrastructure providers that enable compliant capital markets as likely primary beneficiaries rather than issuers of speculative tokens.