A Nasdaq-listed fintech enterprise guided by an ex-FTX Europe executive intends to bring tokenized U.S. equity trading onto distributed ledger technology following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s fresh regulatory framework.
Perpetuals.com (PDC), led by CEO Patrick Gruhn, filed a notification on Wednesday indicating its intention to run a tokenized securities platform under the SEC’s five-year innovation exemption, which permits select venues to trade U.S. shares on open blockchains without registering as conventional securities exchanges.
This initiative positions Perpetuals.com as the second entity to establish a marketplace under the exemption, coming after OKXICE—a partnership between digital asset platform OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange—which filed proposals last week for 24-hour trading of over 60 tokenized U.S. stocks.
The exemption, launched in September, enables specific exchanges to facilitate U.S. stock trading on public blockchains without needing to register as traditional stock exchanges. It mandates that tokens possess the exact shareholder privileges as standard equities, including voting rights and dividends, while giving corporations a 30-day window to object to their shares being exchanged on a tokenized marketplace.
A return to tokenized stocks
This development signifies a comeback to tokenized securities for Gruhn and his colleagues, who helped pioneer some of the earliest equity-backed tokens distributed by crypto platforms like Binance and FTX back in 2021.
Gruhn co-founded Digital Assets AG, a Switzerland-registered tokenization firm that partnered with German investment entity CM-Equity to introduce digital tokens connected to equities like Coinbase and Tesla to crypto speculators. Digital Assets AG was subsequently bought by FTX Group, transforming into a division of FTX Europe, which Gruhn managed prior to the exchange conglomerate’s collapse in November 2022.
Those initial instruments differed from the securities anticipated under the SEC’s modern guidelines. Even though they delivered price exposure corresponding to the underlying shares, Binance’s stock tokens omitted voting privileges. Binance terminated the product in July 2021 amid regulatory scrutiny, which included objections voiced by Germany’s BaFin concerning the absence of an issued securities prospectus.
“The Perpetuals team has long been trailblazers in tokenization, and this expansion into the U.S. allows us to further utilize our platform and deep expertise,” Gruhn stated.
The enterprise currently supplies trading infrastructure for Perpetual Markets MTF, a Cyprus-based platform regulated under Europe’s MiFID II rules that also gained certification under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets mandate in August.
The firm announced $65.2 million in combined assets as of the conclusion of April, alongside a net loss of $17.6 million throughout its fiscal year.
Furthermore, it announced a partnership earlier this year with Datavault AI to back trading architecture for proposed tokenized commodity ventures involving gold, copper, and additional physical assets, targeting over $300 million in issuance.
How the new trading venue would work
Based on the public filing provided to CoinDesk, the U.S. platform of Perpetuals will be managed by Kephas Corporation, a Delaware-incorporated affiliate. Transactions will occur through restricted automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pools, initially operating on Kronos X Public, an Ethereum-compatible layer-2 network built by the firm.
AMMs leverage liquidity pools and smart contracts to execute trades between sellers and buyers instead of traditional order books. Every pool pairs a tokenized U.S. equity with a digital asset, initially projected to be a version of USDC, granting qualified investors the ability to exchange shares against the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle.
Perpetuals has not established a definitive release date yet. Activity could kick off in mid-November at the earliest subsequent to the mandatory 30-day interval following the public filing, a company spokesperson informed CoinDesk, subject to finalizing compliance and market-data frameworks, smart-contract security audits, and additional preparations.
The company also intends to release updated disclosures, featuring active smart-contract addresses, before transactions commence, the representative added.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/10/14/former-ftx-europe-chief-targets-u-s-stock-tokenization-with-new-sec-exemption.
