A Former FTX Europe Chief Wants to Sell You Tokenized US Stocks — Inside the New SEC Push That Could Change How You Trade

HEADLINE: A Former FTX Europe Chief Wants to Sell You Tokenized US Stocks — Inside the New SEC Push That Could Change How You Trade SEO_KEYWORDS: tokenized stocks, SEC exemption, Perpetuals.com TAGS: DeFi, Real World Assets, Regulation, Ethereum —CONTENT—

One of the strangest second acts in finance is underway: the former head of FTX Europe is now leading a Nasdaq-listed company, Perpetuals.com, that wants to bring tokenized US stock trading to American investors under a new Securities and Exchange Commission exemption. If the plan works, buying a slice of Apple or Tesla through a crypto-style wallet could move from the fringe to the mainstream — and it is happening faster than most investors realize.

By David Chen | October 15, 2026

According to CoinDesk, Perpetuals.com is only the second company to pursue a US tokenized stock marketplace under the SEC’s new framework. The first mover was a joint venture between crypto exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Translation: the race to put traditional stocks on blockchain rails is no longer a crypto-industry sideshow — the institutions that run the world’s biggest exchanges are now building it themselves.

What Are Tokenized Stocks, in Plain English?

A tokenized stock is a digital token that represents a real share — like getting a claim check for a coat at a restaurant, except the claim check can move anywhere in the world in seconds. Instead of waiting two days for a trade to settle the old way, blockchain settlement can be near-instant, around the clock, including nights and weekends when traditional markets are closed.

The concept is not new — and that history is exactly why the FTX connection matters. The collapsed exchange once offered tokenized stocks to customers outside the US, and when the platform imploded, those products vanished with it. Regulators took note. What is different now is that this wave is being built inside the SEC’s rulebook, through a formal exemption, rather than around it.

Why the SEC Framework Changes the Game

For years, the biggest obstacle to tokenized stocks in America was simple: nobody knew if they were legal. The SEC’s new framework changes that by creating a path for compliant marketplaces — and the queue is forming quickly. Consider the momentum CoinDesk has documented in just the past few months:

• OKX and ICE — the crypto exchange and NYSE parent launched the first tokenized stock joint venture under the new SEC rules
• Perpetuals.com — the Nasdaq-listed firm became the second mover, led by FTX Europe’s former chief
• EasyA — the blockchain developer platform hit a 1.1 billion USD valuation and wants its own shares tradeable on-chain from day one of a planned 2027 listing
• Kraken’s Payward — agreed to buy Lithuania’s Saldo Bank, an EU-licensed lender with 190 million USD in assets, to build regulated deposit and lending rails

The Tension: Trust, Redemptions, and the Ghost of FTX

Here is the honest question every DeFi investor should ask: does it matter that the person pitching this newest marketplace once ran the European arm of one of crypto’s most infamous failures? The counterargument is straightforward — the people who saw FTX’s flaws from the inside may be the most motivated to build something that cannot repeat them. Regulated frameworks, real banking licenses, and Nasdaq listing requirements are exactly the safeguards FTX never had.

Still, the burden of proof is on the builders. Tokenized stocks only work if every digital token is backed one-for-one by a real share sitting with a custodian, redeemable on demand. That promise is easy to make on a website and hard to prove at scale — which is why the SEC’s supervised framework, with its audits and disclosure requirements, matters more than any founder’s redemption arc.

What This Means for Your Portfolio

For now, ordinary US investors cannot yet trade tokenized stocks on these new venues — the frameworks are fresh and the products are still rolling out. But the direction is unmistakable. The wall between “stock market” and “crypto market” is being dismantled from both sides: Wall Street is tokenizing equities while crypto firms are buying banks. Ethereum, the network where most tokenization activity settles, trades near 2,383 USD at the time of writing after a rough week in which its ETF inflow comeback lasted just one day.

The practical takeaway: watch this space, but do not rush. When tokenized stocks do arrive for retail, the winners will likely be investors who use them for what they are genuinely good at — instant settlement, weekend trading, and fractional access — rather than as a new vehicle for leverage. The last cycle proved tokens can represent anything. This one has to prove they can represent it safely.

The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.