- SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce says the regulator is ‘willing to work’ on tokenization.
- She has urged industry participants to come in and talk with the SEC.
- A key issue is how tokenized assets will interact with traditional securities.
In a powerful and welcoming signal to a crypto industry long starved of regulatory clarity, a top US securities regulator has extended a public olive branch, declaring that the Securities and Exchange Commission is open for business when it comes to the revolutionary technology of tokenization.
The move is a significant acknowledgment of a market that is already valued in the tens of billions and is projected to swell into the trillions.
Speaking virtually at the Digital Assets Summit in Singapore on Tuesday, Hester Peirce, a Republican commissioner at the SEC known for her supportive stance on the industry, delivered a clear and direct invitation.
An invitation to innovate
The message from the commissioner was unambiguous: the era of regulatory guesswork may be coming to an end. Instead of issuing enforcement actions, the agency is now inviting collaboration.
“We are willing to work with people who want to tokenise, we urge them to come talk to us,” said Peirce.
Her comments are a direct address to one of the most promising and practical sub-sectors of the crypto world.
Tokenization—the process of creating a blockchain-based digital representation of a real-world asset like a stock or a bond—is already being adopted by major financial institutions globally as a way to improve market liquidity and operational efficiency.
It represents a fundamental transformation in how assets are issued, traded, and managed.
The trillion-dollar question: navigating a new frontier
But Peirce’s invitation was not a blind green light; it came with a crucial and clear-eyed acknowledgment of the complex challenges that lie ahead.
The core issue, she explained, is untangling the relationship between a single security that can exist in multiple forms simultaneously—from traditional paper certificates to blockchain-based tokens.
“Some of the questions are how does a tokenized security interact with other iterations of the security and other forms of that security,” Peirce explained, emphasizing the need for a nuanced approach.
“Depending on how things are tokenized, it could be one of many different things.”
A market poised for explosive growth
The SEC’s newfound willingness to engage is a direct reflection of a market that is becoming too big to ignore.
According to data from RWA.xyz, the total on-chain tokenization market is already valued at 31 billion dollars, with 714 million dollars of that being tokenized stocks.
The future potential is even more staggering. A recent analysis by the global consulting firm McKinsey indicates that the market cap of all tokenized assets could explode to around 2 trillion dollars by 2030.
Peirce’s comments signal that at least some within the highest echelons of US regulation understand that this transformative shift is already underway.
Her invitation to the industry is a crucial first step in building a regulatory framework that can accommodate this new financial reality, a framework that will be essential if the market is to reach its multi-trillion-dollar potential.