PANews reported on May 23 that, according to Bloomberg Legal, sources familiar with the matter revealed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed a planned exemption program that would have provided broad exemptions for U.S. cryptocurrency companies to allow them to trade tokenized assets linked to stocks, due to concerns about third-party issuers.

Over the past few days, SEC staff have held discussions with stock exchange officials and market participants and are weighing their feedback. Bloomberg reports that a particularly thorny issue is "so-called third-party tokens, the issuance of which lacks the backing or consent of the relevant publicly traded company." Several former regulatory officials are concerned about how to ensure that tokenized assets enjoy the same rights as regulated securities, such as dividends and voting rights. These former officials stated that because tokens can be traded through blockchain networks, it is currently unclear how companies will fulfill these obligations.