The proposal to rescind SEC Regulation NMS rules governing tokenized stocks landed Thursday alongside a bipartisan crypto-crime bill and Hungary’s reversal of its 2025 crackdown, a rare same-day cluster of regulatory movement across three jurisdictions.
SEC Regulation NMS Rescission: What It Means for Tokenized Stocks
The SEC press release confirms the agency is proposing to rescind Rule 611 of Regulation NMS (the trade-through prohibition) and Rule 610(e) (restrictions on locking and crossing quotations), along with related defined terms under Rule 600. The stated rationale is to ‘simplify market structure and reduce costs for market participants while allowing competition, innovation, and other market forces to shape the continuing evolution of our equity markets.’
For DeFi, the practical stakes are direct. Galaxy Digital’s head of research Alex Thorn called the move ‘one of the biggest unlocks yet for tokenized stocks,’ framing Rule 611 specifically as ‘one of the biggest structural barriers to tokenized US equities trading in DeFi.’ His reasoning: automated market makers (AMMs) operate on a constant-rebalancing model where prices drift continuously across pools, meaning any AMM trading tokenized equities ‘would commit trade-throughs constantly and arguably be an illegal trading center’ under the current rules.
Thorn expects the SEC to replace the rescinded rules with a best-execution framework, which would create a workable compliance path for AMMs. The proposal is open for public comment for 60 days before the SEC reviews responses and finalises its position.
The rescission does not resolve every regulatory question around tokenized equities; securities registration, custody, and broker-dealer obligations remain. But removing the trade-through prohibition eliminates a structural incompatibility that made on-chain equity trading legally untenable regardless of how those other issues were resolved.
Federal Cryptocurrency Theft Task Force: What the Bill Actually Creates
The legislation introduced by Republican Representative Lance Gooden and Democrat Josh Gottheimer is formally titled the Federal Cryptocurrency Theft Enforcement and Coordination Act. It would establish a Federal Cryptocurrency Theft Task Force chaired by the Attorney General, with senior representation from the Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, the FBI, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The task force would standardise evidence collection, blockchain forensics, and asset-tracing procedures across federal, state, and local agencies. It would also produce an annual report to Congress covering trends, case outcomes, and recommended actions, per CoinDesk‘s review of the bill text.
The numbers behind the bill are not in dispute. CryptoNews, citing the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, puts crypto-related losses at $11.3 billion last year, across 181,565 complaints: a 21% jump in complaint volume from the prior year. The FBI separately reported that cyber-enabled crimes across all categories cost Americans nearly $21 billion in 2025, with crypto and AI-related scams among the costliest segments.
Whether a coordination body materially changes enforcement outcomes depends on whether agencies share case data in practice, not just in statute. That part is not in the bill text.
Hungary Unwinds Its 2025 Crypto Restrictions
Hungary’s reversal is less ambiguous. Government spokesperson Anita Köböl confirmed at a Thursday press conference that the country will decriminalise crypto trading, unwinding a 2025 framework that attached criminal penalties to unsanctioned crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto conversions.
‘This was an unnecessary piece of legislation. It made practical operation impossible and frightened the market participants,’ Köböl said, in a translation reported by Cointelegraph. ‘The criminal consequences also negatively impacted several hundred thousand people.’
The 2025 rules prompted Revolut and other platforms to suspend crypto services in Hungary. The regime also drew a European Union probe into compatibility with the bloc’s rules, which Köböl cited as a contributing factor in the reversal. Hungary’s about-face tracks a broader EU-level push toward harmonised digital-asset regulation under MiCA, where member-state frameworks that deviate sharply from the bloc’s baseline face mounting legal pressure.
With the SEC’s comment window now open and the Gooden-Gottheimer bill entering the legislative queue, the next test for the Regulation NMS rescission is how DeFi protocol governance responds: any AMM or tokenized-equity venue that wants to position ahead of a best-execution framework will need to start that legal architecture work before the 60-day window closes.
