“I now believe that our U.S. regulators are looking for product innovation and looking to move forward,” she said. “I’m now excited that we may be able to re-engage those conversations with the SEC’s task force, that we may be able to bring forward security tokens.”
Most companies that offer securities trading have to be registered as broker-dealers, like Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade or Fidelity, which Coinbase is not. One way for Coinbase to receive approval from the SEC to offer tokenized equities is by requesting a “no action letter,” Grewal said. That would be a way for the SEC to pledge it would not object to tokenized securities, or recommend an enforcement action.
“With a no action letter, an issuer of a tokenized equity or a platform that wishes to offer secondary trading in those equities can have some confidence, some comfort, that the SEC has adopted its view of why this product is compliant,” Grewal said.
It is not clear whether Coinbase is seeking to gain approval for tokenized securities through a “no action letter” or through some other legal means.
