Project Open Presented by Solana Policy Institute, Superstate, and Orca
The recent opening of the Trump administration to bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and the lessening of the obstacles for public entities and banks to operate with digital assets, present opportunities for a wider adoption of these in the financial world. The Solana Policy Institute, Superstate, and Orca have recently unveiled Project Open, seeking to empower the equity world with blockchain, bringing instant settlements, greater transparency, and lower costs to traditional markets.
Project Open was filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), proposing a pilot to enable the issuance and trading of equity securities on public blockchains. This, according to the group of entities, would “create more efficient and accessible capital
markets while advancing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) core
policy goals of protecting investors,” leveraging these decentralized structures to this end.
The pilot, which would last for 18 months, would limit its action to an initial cohort of issuers, which would be able to tokenize new or existing shares as digital assets called “token shares.”
Investors would need to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and courses to be able to hold and trade these token shares.
Miller Whitehouse-Levine, CEO of the Solana Policy Institute, highlighted the relevance of this proposal, stating that it represented “an embodiment of American progress in financial innovation.” “Our goal is to work constructively with the SEC and industry partners to create internet capital markets and make all capital markets more efficient, accessible, and transparent,” he concluded.
If greenlighted, the regulatory framework would energize the current equity environment, supporting new methods of capital formation and changing how equities are traded and settled.
