Alternative Trading Systems (ATS) Archives

SEC Officials Talk Tokenization

On May 12, 2025, SEC Chair Paul S. Atkins and Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda gave speeches at the crypto task force roundtable on tokenization.

Chair Atkins Speech

Techology is advancing such that securities are increasingly being moved from traditional databases (ledgers with the transfer agent, etc..) to blockchain based ledger systems. Atkins likens this change to the historical music industry which morphed from analog vinyl records to cassettes to digital software. The change in the music industry allowed streaming and an entirely new system of developing and listening to music.

Atkins notes that just as digitization revolutionized the music industry, the digitization (i.e. tokenization) of securities has the potential to “remodel aspects of the securities market by enabling entirely new methods of issuing, trading, owning, and using securities.” For example, the new technology will make the issuance of dividends (especially recurring dividends) automatic, allow for the trading of previously illiquid assets, and allow for the creation of new

July 8, 2025

SEC Fall 2023 Regulatory Agenda

On December 6, 2023, the SEC published its semi-annual Fall 2023 regulatory agenda (“Agenda”) and plans for rulemaking. The Agenda is published twice a year, and for several years I have blogged about each publication. Although items on the Agenda can move from one category to the next, be dropped off altogether, or new items pop up in any of the categories (including the final rule stage), the Agenda provides valuable insight into the SEC’s plans and the influence that comments can make on the rulemaking process.

The Agenda is broken down by (i) Proposed Rule Stage; (ii) Final Rule Stage; and (iii) Long-term Actions. The Proposed and Final Rule Stages are intended to be completed within the next 12 months and Long-term Actions are anything beyond that. The number of items to be completed in a 12-month time frame is 43, down from 55 on the Spring 2023 Agenda.

Fourteen items are included in the proposed rule stage, down

January 16, 2024

SEC Report On Meme Stocks

On October 18, 2021, the SEC released a report on the meme stock craze that caused the securities of companies like GameStop Corp. to soar to unprecedented high trading prices and volume. Commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman criticized the report as being used as an excuse to add or consider adding additional regulations in the areas of conflicts of interest, payment for order flow, off-exchange trading, and wholesale market making when, however, no causal connection between the meme stock trading and these other factors has been established. I found the report interesting for the background and discussion on the U.S. trading markets.

Market Structure

From the perspective of individual investors, the lifecycle of a stock trade starts with an investor placing an order through an account they establish with a broker-dealer. The broker-dealer then routes the order for execution to a trading center, such as a national securities exchange, an alternative trading system (“ATS”), or an off-exchange market

November 16, 2021

SEC Chair Gary Gensler Testifies To Congress

On May 6, 2021, new SEC Chair Gary Gensler made his debut, giving testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. Although Mr. Gensler is not new to regulatory leadership – he was head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – and as such, his style is certainly not new to capital markets participants, the testimony was nonetheless very enlightening of the mindset of the new SEC regime. The purpose of the testimony was particularly related to the market volatility in January, including GameStop and AMC, and reactions to that trading frenzy including Robinhood’s temporary trading restrictions, but over four hours, touched on much more.

From thirty thousand feet, Gensler attributes the January volatility to an intersection of finance and technology. On a more granular level, he highlights: (i) gamification and user experience; (ii) payment for order flow; (iii) equity market structure; (iv) short selling and market transparency; (v) social media; (vi) market plumbing – i.e., clearance and settlement; and

May 25, 2021

SEC Fall 2020 Regulatory Agenda

The SEC’s latest version of its semiannual regulatory agenda and plans for rulemaking has been published in the federal register. The Fall 2020 Agenda (“Agenda”) is current through October 2020. The Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions contains the Regulatory Plans of 28 federal agencies and 68 federal agency regulatory agendas. The Agenda is published twice a year, and for several years I have blogged about each publication.

Like the prior Agendas, the Fall 2020 Agenda is broken down by (i) “Pre-rule Stage”; (ii) Proposed Rule Stage; (iii) Final Rule Stage; and (iv) Long-term Actions. The Proposed and Final Rule Stages are intended to be completed within the next 12 months and Long-term Actions are anything beyond that. The number of items to be completed in a 12-month time frame is down to 32 items. The Spring Agenda had 42 and the Fall 2019 had 47 on the list.

Items on the Agenda can move from one category to

May 18, 2021

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