The future of investing is moving onchain: tokenized stocks and ETFs in your personal wallet, trading around the clock, ready to be put to work across DeFi. How we get there is still being decided as different models are coming to market.
Yesterday, Ondo Finance submitted a letter to the SEC on its proposed transfer agent rules, which govern the firms which maintain companies' shareholder records. Those connections to TradFi markets matter for everything we and others are building onchain. Our letter asks for three things:
More Routes Onchain
Ensure investors holding tokenized securities have reliable connections to issuers' transfer agents comparable to those that exist for the system managed by DTC and its members. Let investors and their preferred partners reach both of those systems directly, and choose the route that works best for them, making it easier to bring securities onchain and supply liquidity where it's needed.
Keep Assets Moving
Match information requirements and any required legal reviews to the transaction. Use verified records and transaction checks for routine activity, with additional information reviews when needed. No token transfer should automatically require agents to duplicate already verified personal information or repeat unchanged legal work unless doing so serves a clearly identified purpose.
More Builders. More Choice.
Support public blockchains without requiring a transfer agent to control the entire network. Give capable smaller providers workable ways to comply with the new standards. Judge transfer agent modernization by whether investors gain lower costs, better services and more choice. Fewer providers and more closed systems would take us backward.
The SEC is updating a framework built over nearly 50 years ago. This is our chance to strengthen connections between the depth of traditional markets and the openness of public blockchains, to make onchain investing work better for everyone. This is our chance to get it right.
Read our full letter to the SEC →
