Perpetuals.com files to trade tokenized U.S. stocks under SEC innovation exemption

A Nasdaq-listed fintech run by a former FTX Europe executive wants to put U.S. stocks on public blockchains under the SEC’s new “innovation exemption.” Perpetuals.com (PDC), led by CEO Patrick Gruhn, filed a notice Wednesday outlining plans for a tokenized securities marketplace, CoinDesk reported.

What the exemption allows

Introduced in September, the five-year exemption lets certain venues trade U.S. stocks on public chains without registering as traditional exchanges. Tokens must carry the same shareholder rights as ordinary shares — including dividends and voting — and issuers get 30 days to object to tokenization of their stock.

Perpetuals.com is the second company to pursue a marketplace under the framework, after OKXICE, a joint venture between OKX and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which last week outlined plans for 24/7 trading of more than 60 tokenized U.S. stocks.

Who is behind it

Gruhn co-founded Digital Assets AG, which helped bring early stock-linked tokens to exchanges including Binance and FTX in 2021. That firm was later acquired by FTX Group; Gruhn led FTX Europe before the group’s collapse in November 2022. Those earlier products often gave price exposure without voting rights and faced regulatory pushback — Binance ended its stock-token offering in July 2021.

Today Perpetuals provides trading tech for Perpetual Markets MTF in Cyprus (MiFID II and MiCA-authorized). It reported $65.2 million in total assets at end-April and a $17.6 million net loss for its fiscal year.

How trading would work

The U.S. venue would be run by Delaware subsidiary Kephas Corporation, using permissioned AMM pools on Kronos X Public, an Ethereum-compatible layer-2 the company developed. Pools would pair a tokenized U.S. stock with a digital asset — initially expected to be USDC — instead of a classic order book.

A spokesperson told CoinDesk trading could begin in mid-November at the earliest, after the notice period, depending on market-data and compliance arrangements, smart-contract reviews and other prep. Updated disclosures with live contract addresses are planned before launch.

Tokenization themes also appear in our coverage of BNY and Citadel’s tokenized Treasuries test.