U.S. regulators moved within hours of each other on Thursday, using existing authority rather than new legislation to carve out limited crypto-related relief after the Senate failed to advance H.R. 3633. The Securities and Exchange Commission created a temporary, conditional exemption for Tokenized Securities Venues, allowing certain tokenized National Market System stocks to trade onchain through permissioned liquidity pools, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission expanded no-action relief for passive software providers that route users to registered futures intermediaries. The SEC order is narrow and time-limited. It lasts five years unless amended or withdrawn earlier, does not permit primary issuance, and leaves antifraud rules, OFAC sanctions compliance, and Securities Act registration for primary offerings untouched. It also imposes hard caps on symbols and trading volume, requires public-ledger smart contracts that can be audited, mandates trading halts when the underlying stock is halted on its primary exchange, and gives issuers the power to block third-party tokenized listings within 30 calendar days. The CFTC’s Staff Letter 26-25 extends a path that had previously been available only to Phantom Technologies. It says staff will not recommend enforcement against qualifying passive software providers for failing to register as introducing brokers, subject to 10 conditions. Industry groups welcomed the SEC move, while SIFMA repeated concerns that broad exemptions could create parallel but unequal trading systems.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued an "Innovation Exemption" order that creates a five-year compliance window for certain on-chain trading venues handling tokenized National Market System stocks. Under the order, qualifying Tokenized Securities Venues, or TSVs, can use permissioned AMM liquidity pools to trade tokenized equities without being treated as exchanges under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, while liquidity providers using their own capital may avoid dealer status. The order sets clear limits. Tokenized shares must carry the same economic and governance rights as traditional stocks, including dividends and voting rights. Issuers get a veto right over third-party tokenized listings after a 30-day notice period, and synthetic products that only track price exposure are excluded. The SEC also requires auditable smart contracts, public deployment on permissionless distributed ledgers, synchronized halts when underlying stocks are suspended, and regular public disclosures on prices, trade size, time, pool addresses, and end-of-day balances. The announcement lifted tokenization-related names including Securitize, Bullish, Coinbase, Robinhood, and UNI, while drawing opposition from Citadel Securities and SIFMA. The move arrives after the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate, making administrative exemptions a key tool for SEC Chair Paul Atkins and fellow commissioners pushing a digital-market agenda.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 17 released an "innovation exemption" framework for tokenized securities, laying out some of its clearest conditions yet for bringing listed equities on-chain in the U.S. The document says tokenized stocks must carry the same dividend and voting rights as the underlying shares, and any third party seeking to tokenize a public company’s stock must first notify the issuer in writing and allow a 30-day objection period. Those standards echo the recent public dispute between AMC CEO Adam Aron and Robinhood over tokenized AMC stock. The SEC framework does not directly rule on Robinhood’s existing offshore product. Robinhood Chain, launched in June 2025 and expanded in July 2026 to more than 190 tokenized stocks and ETFs across over 120 countries, is issued by Jersey-based Robinhood Assets, targets non-U.S. users, and offers no voting or dividend rights. The SEC document instead applies to compliant trading venues operating in the United States. The timing matters. Two days earlier, a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act drew 49 votes in the Senate, short of the 60 needed to advance. Rather than wait for Congress, the SEC moved through a conditional five-year administrative exemption. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce also said the exemption is not meant for DeFi systems driven by permissionless smart contracts, while Uniswap founder Hayden Adams said ordinary trading in Uniswap’s main pools would fall outside the new framework.

Real-world asset markets eased slightly in the latest weekly window, but user growth kept accelerating. PANews said RWA on-chain market capitalization stood at $38.53 billion as of Sept. 18, down 0.75% from a month earlier, while the number of asset holders climbed to 4.436 million, up 85.84%. Stablecoins also stayed on an upward track, with total market capitalization reaching $303.35 billion and monthly transfer volume rising to $7.03 trillion. The week’s biggest regulatory development came from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which approved a temporary, conditional Innovation Exemption for tokenized National Market System stocks. The move allows limited trading on certain blockchain-based venues and gives the agency a way to collect market data before writing longer-term rules. Hong Kong, meanwhile, said it wants to support issuance and trading of gold and other suitable RWAs on licensed platforms, while the European Central Bank, the U.K., Thailand and India each advanced separate tokenization or digital currency initiatives. On the industry side, SWIFT launched a tokenized deposit cross-border payments pilot with 17 banks, Ondo’s broker-dealer unit joined DTCC’s Fund/SERV network, Aave prepared a dedicated RWA lending market on Avalanche, and Centrifuge rolled out a tokenized high-yield corporate bond fund with New York Life Investment Management. Funding activity also stayed focused on tokenization infrastructure and stablecoin settlement rails, with tZERO, Velocity, dtcpay and Fin.com all announcing fresh capital.

Crypto markets on Sept. 18 were driven by a mix of regulation, whale positioning and private-market fundraising. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a five-year “innovation exemption” that would let tokenized securities venues trade tokenized National Market System stocks through permissioned AMM liquidity pools under a set of conditions. On-chain tracker Lookonchain said Garrett Jin, described as the largest on-chain ZEC short, is now sitting on more than $26 million in unrealized losses and moved roughly $85 million in ETH from Binance to Hyperliquid to defend the position. Bloomberg also reported that Manus, a China-founded AI startup, is working on a roughly $500 million financing that could lift its valuation to $4 billion. Elsewhere, Arthur Hayes commented on FLOP testnet trading and the macro effect of Fed hikes, Matt Huang argued that Zcash’s developer fund remains important for long-term resilience, and Standard Chartered revised its Fed call to a 25-basis-point hike in December 2026.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved an "innovation exemption" that creates a temporary, conditional route for on-chain trading of certain tokenized NMS stocks, with SEC Chair Paul S. Atkins laying out four core requirements. Those include U.S.-based venues, permissioned access, a ban on synthetic tokenized equities, and an issuer opt-out right backed by a 30-day notice process. The agency also said token holders must receive rights equivalent to those attached to traditional securities, including dividends and voting rights. Elsewhere, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $159 million in net inflows on Sept. 17, according to SoSoValue. BlackRock's IBIT was the only fund with net inflows, adding $184 million, while Fidelity's FBTC saw the largest daily outflow at $16.6386 million. Total net assets across spot Bitcoin ETFs stood at $96.247 billion, with a net asset ratio of 6.26% and cumulative historical net inflows reaching $54.728 billion. The day also brought a wide set of market and project updates: a Bitcoin whale moved 1,651.82 BTC to Kraken, Hyperliquid launched manual borrowing against HYPE and BTC, Across Protocol began its transition to AcrossCo with ACX set to lose all functions after Jan. 8, 2027, and Nostra paused lending after an oracle manipulation incident on Starknet.

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said on X that he supports the tokenized stock policy outlined by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins, highlighting three points he sees as essential. Aron said investor protection must remain in place, synthetic assets should not be used, and stock issuers should have the right to object to their securities being traded on tokenized securities venues. He added that, under the SEC framework, eligible stock tokens should carry full voting rights and dividend rights, and public companies should be able to block tokenized trading of their shares. Aron also addressed Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev directly, calling on the company to apply the same standards to its overseas stock token business. His comments came after the SEC approved a temporary, conditional Innovation Exemption that allows limited trading of tokenized stocks on certain on-chain venues known as tokenized securities venues, or TSVs.

A dense wave of crypto, regulatory and macro headlines hit the market between Sept. 17 and Sept. 18. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a temporary, conditional Innovation Exemption that allows limited trading of certain tokenized National Market System stocks on qualifying on-chain venues, while explicitly excluding synthetic products. The move came with strict conditions around issuer notice, investor rights, venue eligibility and sanctions compliance, and drew immediate reactions from SEC officials, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and Uniswap founder Hayden Adams. At the same time, Zcash became one of the market’s most closely watched assets. ZEC briefly moved above $1,500, liquidations topped $65 million over 24 hours, and several newly created wallets withdrew tens of millions of dollars’ worth of ZEC from exchanges. Separate reports tracked a large ZEC long on Hyperliquid, a whale that closed a month-long OKX long for an estimated $8.29 million profit, and a major short seller facing roughly $30 million in unrealized losses. Elsewhere, BlackRock transferred about $285.5 million in BTC and ETH to Coinbase Prime, Zilliqa set Sept. 22 for its second exchange migration hard fork, S&P Global signed a deal to acquire OpenZeppelin, and multiple AI companies, exchanges and infrastructure projects announced product, financing and policy updates.