US Financial Industry Group SIFMA Urges SEC to Reject Crypto Firms’ Tokenized Stock Exemption Requests

According to a report by Jinse Finance, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), which represents major Wall Street institutions, recently sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) crypto working group, strongly urging the SEC to reject requests from digital asset companies to issue tokenized stocks through "no-action letters" or "exemptive relief." In the letter, SIFMA stated that its members are "deeply concerned" about reports of digital asset companies seeking to issue tokenized stocks and called on the SEC to deny these exemption applications. The association believes that for the introduction of new trading and issuance models, as well as other potential policy issues, the SEC should adopt a more transparent public process that allows for broader industry participation and feedback, rather than addressing them solely through immediate exemption requests. SIFMA raised questions, including whether the relevant companies need to become members of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), how investors will be protected, and how the SEC will oversee unregistered entities.