strategy

Illustration: Anna Kim, Photo: Adobe Stock

The SEC in September opened up a temporary, conditional pathway that allows for the trading of digital stocks: tokens on a blockchain that represent ownership in real company shares. Now, a growing number of companies are trying to block the unwanted tokenization of their shares.

So far, three venues—Perpetuals.com, OKXICE, and TSV—have filed with the SEC to operate tokenized stock venues under the Innovation Exemption. Each venue is required to notify issuing companies, by posting a notice on its website, of its plans to trade tokenized versions of their stocks. The companies have 30 days to opt out.

Citigroup expects the global tokenized asset market to reach $5.5 trillion by 2030 from its current $17 billion, driven by public market securities, specifically US equities and treasuries. Robinhood, for example, has tokenized 202 stocks, according to Nora Chan, a company spokesperson. This includes some well-known securities like Apple, Nvidia, and Alphabet, but these tokens are unavailable in the US. Apple, Nvidia, and Alphabet did not respond to our requests for comment by publication.

Under the Innovation Exemption, TSVs are expected to not list the tokenized stock after a company objects, according to Daniel Budofsky, a partner with law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. “If the TSV lists it anyway, it loses the benefit of the exemption and could become subject to an enforcement action by the SEC,” Budofsky told us in an email.

He cautioned that the “right to block trading” on a particular TSV isn’t a “universal right” that stops anyone else from digitizing a stock. The SEC order “doesn’t appear to create a centralized or blanket opt-out covering every TSV,” Budofsky said. Instead, issuers must object to each TSV.

“The Order gives an issuer an important—but limited—right to object,” Budofsky told CFO Brew.

So what happens if the issuer remains silent? Keep reading.—LB

      

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CFOVILLE

Acron Aviation

Acron Technologies is the product of M&A.

According to a company description, the aerospace and defense technology platform, which is owned by private equity firm TJC, is an assemblage of more than 17 acquisitions tracing back to 2013. But a formative moment came in March 2025, when TJC acquired L3Harris Technologies’ commercial aviation solutions business for $800 million, and renamed it Acron Aviation.

Acron kept up its acquisition spree with two more deals in April, leading up to its announcement in July that it had combined over a dozen portfolio companies under the Acron Technologies corporate brand. It announced it was selling its commercial training solutions business in August. Per a news release, the divestiture “sharpens” Acron’s focus on two segments: aerospace solutions, and defense and rescue technologies.

“All those transactions have built us to where we are today,” Acron CFO Jack LeMay, who joined the company in late July, told CFO Brew.

In a recent interview, LeMay walked us through Acron’s strategy in the coming months.—AZ

      

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Succession planning

Illustration: Shannon May, Photos: Getty Images, Adobe Stock

Wall Street doesn’t usually open on Sundays. But when Jensen Huang became the center of a national security controversy, traders weren’t waiting until after the weekend.

On Sunday, the Nvidia CEO admitted in a message to his company that he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a suspected Chinese spy. By that afternoon, investors were selling Nvidia perpetual futures, leveraged derivatives that trade around the clock. Hyperliquid recorded $200 million in volume within half an hour, while prediction markets saw bets on when Huang might leave.

Nvidia shares plunged 4.27% on Monday, erasing over $300 billion in market value. Its board is investigating whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation amid reports of the relationship with a woman suspected of passing information to China. Nvidia says it has no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised.

The selloff also raised a multitrillion-dollar question: How much of Nvidia’s value depends on one man in a black leather jacket?

Brew Markets takes a closer look.—HC

      

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market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 19%. That’s how much net sales at the Children’s Place were down year over year in its second fiscal quarter, before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week. Tariffs and a consumer slowdown are partly to blame. (CNBC)

Quote: “Big Tech CEOs, Wall Street executives, and giant corporations should prepare to answer tough questions.”—Senator Elizabeth Warren, the likely next head of the Senate Banking Committee (Reuters)

Read: At work, you can tell who the cool kids are by how many tokens they get. 💅 (Bloomberg)

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The cloud has a tax now

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