You’ll Never Guess Which Wall Street Dinosaur Is Getting a Blockchain Makeover 🦖💸

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Brace yourself: Project Open has just slid into the SEC’s DMs as a “pilot program,” boldly promising to slap equity securities onto public blockchains. Yes, you heard it—zero settlement times, transparency, and maybe fewer tears over those *classic* trading fees.

Solana Policy Institute, Superstate & Orca Present: The ‘Why Not Try Everything Once?’ Project Open

With the Trump administration gently nudging the crypto door open, and banks suddenly warming up to digital assets like your mum trying oat milk for the first time, it seems everyone’s ready for a financial glow-up. Enter Solana Policy Institute, Superstate, and our friend Orca, strutting out Project Open with the sort of swagger not seen since someone suggested putting pineapple on pizza. Their plan? Jolt equities onto the blockchain for instant settlements, snoop-proof transparency (so nosey, yet so necessary), and much-needed cuts to market costs.

This illustrious trio has hand-delivered their pitch to the SEC: let’s run a pilot and see if the average stock share enjoys life as a “token share.” Investors everywhere now wondering if they’ll finally get a digital wallet cooler than their actual one. In theory, it could make capital markets more efficient, more accessible, and—dare we hope—less of a headache for everyone except possibly the world’s stodgiest bankers. SEC’s core policy goals get a sexy blockchain remix.

This experiment is basically the financial version of Eurovision: a spectacle lasting 18 months, featuring a select squad of brave issuers. Each one gets to slap blockchain lipstick on their old or new shares, and voilà—hello, “token shares.”

But wait, eager investor! Before you can boast about your shiny blockchain shares at brunch, you’ll have to go full James Bond: we’re talking Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and courses. Because who doesn’t want to take a class before buying stocks? 🎓📈

Miller Whitehouse-Levine, who heads Solana’s Policy Institute, declared this all “an embodiment of American progress in financial innovation.” (Which is basically just polite code for, “We’re still figuring it out, but isn’t this fun?”) Aim: work with the SEC and anyone else with a suit to finally make capital markets as easy and breezy as ordering pizza online—or at least slightly less broken.

Should the SEC hand out the green light, we could see equity markets finally shaking off their dinosaur dust, recharging with some blockchain caffeine, and revolutionizing the way shares are traded and settled. Maybe, just maybe, making investment jargon slightly less migraine-inducing for the rest of us. 🦕✨💸

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2025-05-01 15:01