First tokenized US shares trade under the SEC's exemption: five purchases worth $40,296

Shares of an American listed company have traded on a blockchain under the Securities and Exchange Commission's new rules for the first time. On 4 November tokens representing stock in Canton Strategic Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed company, changed hands on a venue called TSV. It runs on the Canton Network, a blockchain built for financial institutions. TSV relies on a temporary exemption the SEC granted in September. It lets such venues trade tokenized shares without registering as stock exchanges, in return for limits on volume and on who may take part.

Five North, an existing shareholder, asked for its shares to be recorded as tokens. Fairmint, the company's transfer agent, keeps the official record of who owns its shares. It moved Five North's holding from a brokerage account onto a register kept on the blockchain. The trades ran through a pool, a stock of shares and cash that buyers trade against, with software setting the price. Flowdesk, a trading firm, supplied the pool, and DRW Cumberland, another, made the purchases. The company names Five North as the seller but does not say how its shares reached the pool. Payment was in USDCx, a version of the USDC dollar stablecoin carried onto the Canton Network, and shares and cash move in the same instant or not at all.

The venue's public trading record shows how small the start was. Five trades went through on 4 November, all purchases, worth $40,296 together, for about 18,700 shares. The price rose with each one: the first paid about $2.08 a share and the last about $2.37, 14% more. Crypto Briefing put the Nasdaq price at around $2. That last trade came just before 6pm in New York, after Nasdaq had closed. Nothing traded in the five days to 9 November, and on 10 November the pool still held about 4,800 shares and $58,000 in stablecoins. Crypto Briefing reported the first trade as worth about $30,296; in the venue's record that sum is the first four trades, not one.

"Last week we set out to be the first tokenized U.S. equity traded under the SEC's new framework. Today, the first trades are done," said Mark Wendland, the company's chairman and chief executive. Joris Delanoue, Fairmint's chief executive, made the case for his own firm's role. "A blockchain can settle a trade, but it takes an accountable transfer agent to say who legally owns the share," he said. The companies say the tokens carry the same rights as shares held through Nasdaq. Only holders whose identity and wallets have been checked may hold or trade them.

Much is unsettled. The venue's notice warns that the tokens may trade outside market hours at prices well away from the last Nasdaq price, and it does not tie them to it. For stocks outside the biggest indices, a venue may trade no more than 2.5% of the previous month's average daily volume, and a second breach brings a three-month pause. The first company to list is also close to the network: Canton Strategic Holdings invests in it and helps run and secure it as one of its so-called super validators. A standard pool charges 0.30% a trade, two-thirds to those supplying it and the rest to the venue. Rivals are coming. Ledger Insights reports that Formation Securities has told the SEC it plans a venue on the Solana blockchain, starting in early 2027 with shares in Galaxy Digital and Exodus.