Overview
- The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed on Thursday, June 11, to rescind Regulation NMS Rules 611 and 610(e) and opened a 60-day public comment period after Federal Register publication.
- Rule 611 requires trades to respect the National Best Bid and Offer and Rule 610(e) bars locked or crossed quotes, constraints that automated market makers (AMMs) on blockchains cannot meet because they price via liquidity pools, bonding curves, slippage, and block-time execution.
- Industry analysts say removing these rules would eliminate a core technical obstacle to DeFi trading of tokenized U.S. equities but would not by itself legalize tokenized stocks or resolve registration, custody, clearing, settlement, or investor-rights questions.
- Market watchers expect the SEC to review comments, consider targeted exemptive relief or pilots that could arrive before final rulemaking, and many analysts project any final rule change around Q1 2027.
- If the rules are rescinded, oversight is likely to shift toward broker-level best-execution duties under FINRA Rule 5310 and to follow broader SEC work on digital-asset policy under its Project Crypto initiative.