Crypto World

SEC’s advisory group backs tokenized securities push, outlines how to keep it safe

Published

4 hours ago

13 March 2026

SEC's advisory group backs tokenized securities push, outlines how to keep it safe

A committee that advises the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recommended the agency move forward on a tokenized-securities policy that would allow traders to cut out the kind of go-between settlement that Wall Street investment firms have relied on for decades.

The SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee voted Thursday to recommend narrow exemptions for the blockchain-based innovation for the trading of stocks, as long as the activity comes with mandatory disclosures, routine outside supervision and “a requirement that the trading of tokenized equity securities seeks to ensure that all investors receive the best terms for their orders.”

These crypto assets still meet the definition of securities under the law, as SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has regularly contended, which means the activity needs parallel safeguards to the traditional system. Atkins said his agency is working toward formal regulations on tokenization. Now this work has the backing of an official recommendation from the committee, whose members include veterans from major trading firms, institutional investors and academics.

The traditional approach to stock trading features brokers, transfer agents and centralized settlement databases and can take a day or more to execute, but in placing that same stock on-chain, “the delivery of the tokenized security and the payment can happen as a single transaction, with ownership records embedded directly into a single blockchain.”

The group told the commission that the newer approach doesn’t come without risks:

“The most significant risk associated with the tokenization of equity securities is that these reforms or grants of exemptive relief could introduce new risks that investors do not understand and impose higher costs that outweigh the benefits of tokenization,” according to the recommendation document approved by the committee.

In remarks on Thursday, Atkins praised the committee for its “recognition that tokenization can enhance settlement efficiency, reduce settlement risk, and eliminate unnecessary intermediaries.

“I expect the Commission to soon consider an innovation exemption to facilitate limited trading of certain tokenized securities with an eye toward developing a long-term regulatory framework,” he said.

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Crypto World

Bitcoin Miners Need AI, Yield Strategies to Survive

Published

1 minute ago

13 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Bitcoin Miners Need AI, Yield Strategies to Survive

Many Bitcoin miners are struggling to turn a profit this market cycle due to diminishing returns, so they may need to pivot to artificial intelligence hosting or put their holdings to work to generate yields, says market maker Wintermute.

Wintermute said in a blog post on Thursday that Bitcoin (BTC) miners have spent years building large-scale power infrastructure in low-cost energy markets, and they now find themselves “sitting on exactly what the AI industry needs most urgently and cannot easily replicate.”

It said that Bitcoin mining is a “structurally rigid business model,” and while the AI pivot is a compelling one, it is also a “drastic and capital-intensive step.”

The report comes as mining giant MARA Holdings is the latest to eye AI, filing with the SEC on March 3 to signal its intent to sell some of its BTC to pivot to the technology. Meanwhile, publicly listed miners have sold more than 15,000 Bitcoin since October.

Miners hanging onto Bitcoin is “legacy of the HODL era”

Wintermute said that Bitcoin miners are collectively holding close to 1% of the total BTC supply, which it argued was a “legacy of the HODL era,” and that the “full toolkit of treasury management remains largely untapped.”

Crypto yield generation has been traditionally limited to staking and DeFi, but Wintermute said miners could tap yields through active management, such as monetizing market risk through derivatives structures, covered calls, and cash-secured puts.

Passive management options include deploying BTC into lending protocols to earn interest.

*Bitcoin revenue and gross margins are way down from previous cycles (epochs). Source:* *Wintermute*

“We believe active balance sheet management is the most underutilized lever available to miners and one that deserves far greater strategic attention,” Wintermute said. “The miners who treat their BTC holdings as a working asset rather than a passive reserve will carry a structural edge into the next halving.”

Wintermute said that for the first time in a four-year market cycle, Bitcoin has failed to deliver the two-times price return needed to offset halving-driven revenue cuts, and gross margins have peaked at levels that previously marked bear market floors.

Additionally, the transaction fee market has not filled the gap as it is “episodic” and not structural. At the same time, energy costs continue to squeeze margins.

The company noted that data suggests this squeeze is unlike previous cycles in 2018 and 2022, describing it as a “healthy shakeup” that fits within the design of Bitcoin and will make the mining industry “more efficient as a result.”

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