Perpetuals.com files for U.S. tokenized stock venue under SEC exemption

Perpetuals.com (Nasdaq: PDC), led by CEO Patrick Gruhn — a former FTX Europe chief — filed a notice on Oct. 14 that it plans to operate a tokenized U.S. securities venue under the SEC's five-year Innovation Exemption. It is the second company to pursue the framework, after the OKX–ICE joint venture OKXICE filed for round-the-clock trading of 60+ tokenized U.S. stocks.

• The venue would be run by Delaware-based subsidiary Kephas Corporation, trading through permissioned AMM liquidity pools on Kronos X Public, an Ethereum-compatible chain; trading could begin as early as mid-November, pending remaining technical and compliance work.
• Gruhn co-founded Digital Assets AG, which developed early stock-linked tokens for Binance and FTX before FTX Group acquired it; the business became part of FTX Europe, which he led until the group's 2022 collapse.
• The exemption lets venues trade U.S. stocks on public blockchains without registering as full exchanges; tokens must carry full shareholder rights and companies get 30 days to object to inclusion.