Securitize says SEC pulled crypto exemption ahead of CLARITY Act vote

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has held back its planned crypto innovation exemption ahead of a Sept. 15 Senate vote on the CLARITY Act, with Securitize President Brett Redfearn expecting the rule to return as early as October.

Securitize President Brett Redfearn said the SEC pulled back the exemption last Friday because of concerns surrounding the progress of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, placing the regulator’s tokenization plan behind the next major congressional vote on crypto market structure.

Redfearn expects the SEC to introduce the rule after the Senate votes on Sept. 15, with early October emerging as a possible timeframe. His comments provide a more specific timeline for an initiative that has already faced delays as regulators and lawmakers work on separate rules covering digital assets and tokenized securities.

SEC innovation exemption could return after Sept. 15

The innovation exemption is intended to create a regulatory route for companies seeking to issue and trade tokenized securities using blockchain infrastructure under tailored requirements.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins introduced the initiative in April as part of his regulatory program for digital assets. The framework would allow tokenized securities to operate on-chain under modified rules while keeping such products within the SEC’s securities oversight.

As previously covered by crypto.news, Atkins paired the innovation exemption with a regulatory framework that separated crypto assets into several categories and maintained securities-law treatment for tokenized versions of traditional financial instruments.

The framework followed the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s March interpretation on crypto assets. Under that approach, digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools and qualifying payment stablecoins are generally treated differently from digital securities, while tokenized traditional securities remain subject to federal securities laws.

The SEC has continued working on the exemption while Congress negotiates the CLARITY Act, which would establish a federal market structure framework and clarify regulatory responsibilities across parts of the digital asset sector.

Redfearn’s account ties the latest timing of the exemption directly to that legislative process. According to him, concerns about the CLARITY Act vote prompted the SEC to pull the rule last Friday, while the Sept. 15 Senate vote could give the regulator a clearer path to proceed.

The SEC separately cancelled an Aug. 14 open meeting that had been scheduled to consider whether to propose a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. The agency attributed that cancellation to an unforeseen scheduling issue and did not initially announce a replacement date.

Two initiatives were therefore moving through the agency at roughly the same time: the innovation exemption for tokenized securities and a separate framework governing certain crypto offerings. The SEC has not publicly attributed the Aug. 14 meeting cancellation to the CLARITY Act.

Tokenized stocks have already tested the exemption’s scope

Questions surrounding tokenized equities have played a major role in discussions over how far an innovation exemption should extend.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said in May that she expected the contemplated framework for tokenized stocks to remain limited, covering digital representations of equity securities already trading in public secondary markets.

Her comments pushed back against expectations that the exemption could provide unrestricted regulatory relief for products designed to track public stocks.

A May report on the exemption detailed concerns from Redfearn about allowing third parties to tokenize stocks without the participation of the underlying issuer.

Redfearn said at the time that such a model could create multiple wrappers around the same public company, potentially fragmenting the market and leaving investors less certain about the value represented by each product.

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo also supported a more restricted approach. He said the industry should pursue on-chain trading using the appropriate assets rather than encourage derivatives that could introduce additional fragmentation and risk.

The distinction matters because tokenized securities can take different forms. Some products represent the underlying security itself, while others provide economic exposure to a stock without giving holders the same ownership, voting or other shareholder rights.

The SEC has separately stated that putting a security on a blockchain does not remove its status as a security. Its January staff statement on tokenized securities divided the market into securities tokenized by or on behalf of issuers and products tokenized by unaffiliated third parties.

CLARITY Act vote moved into September

The CLARITY Act has spent much of 2026 moving through Congress while lawmakers negotiated several disputed provisions and searched for enough Senate support to advance the legislation.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill 15-9 in May, with 13 Republicans and two Democrats voting in favour. The measure was later placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar, making it eligible for floor consideration without another Banking Committee vote.

A June analysis of the vote found that the legislation faced a difficult Senate calculation because Republicans did not hold the 60 seats required to overcome a potential filibuster on their own.

At the time, Republicans held 53 seats, while Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks had supported the bill at committee level. Both had also warned that their committee votes did not guarantee support for final passage.

The timetable subsequently became another problem. Lawmakers had initially discussed completing work before the August recess, but the Senate left Washington without holding the expected floor vote.

Before the recess, negotiations had covered ethics provisions, stablecoin-related rules, illicit finance safeguards and protections for developers of non-custodial blockchain software. The Senate also had to reconcile policy work originating from the Banking and Agriculture committees before completing the market structure package.

The pre-recess timetable had placed pressure on lawmakers to finish that work before Aug. 7 after an earlier July target passed without enactment.

The legislative calendar has now moved the next major procedural test to Sept. 15, when the Senate is expected to take up the bill following its summer recess.

SEC is moving separately on crypto fundraising rules

While the innovation exemption remains pending, the SEC has continued developing other crypto rules using its existing authority.

On Aug. 18, the agency proposed a regulatory framework covering certain crypto offerings and transactions. The proposal includes a one-time exemption allowing qualifying issuers to raise up to $5 million over four years and another pathway allowing eligible offerings of up to $75 million annually, subject to disclosure and reporting requirements.

The SEC has also proposed a safe harbour that could provide a route for certain crypto assets sold through investment contracts to stop being treated under that framework once specified conditions are satisfied.

An earlier review of the SEC framework detailed how the agency was preparing those exemptions alongside congressional work on the CLARITY Act, allowing the regulator to pursue parts of its crypto agenda under existing securities law even before Congress completes market structure legislation.

Securitize, meanwhile, has been expanding its own use of tokenized securities infrastructure. In July, the company tokenized its NYSE-listed common stock on Solana and Avalanche on the same day it began public trading.

The blockchain-based shares trade under the SECZ ticker and represent the same common stock rather than a separate equity class. The launch followed a $400 million SPAC transaction and made Securitize the first newly public company to tokenize its own common shares on its first day of NYSE trading.