SharesPost is reporting it has received approval from both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to operate an Alternative Trading System or ATS. SharesPost will now move into the secondary trading market for security tokens minted by initial coin offerings (ICOs). SharesPost expects to launch the new 
market in the second half of 2018, joining just a handful of other companies that are pursuing a similar path for the booming ICO industry.
SharesPost CEO Greg Brogger called the approval a landmark moment for his company.
“This regulatory approval makes SharesPost Financial Corp. one of the first online marketplaces the SEC has approved to support trading of security tokens. We are excited to soon be enabling the more than 50,000 accredited investors registered on the SharesPost platform, who have been investing in leading private technology companies for years, to now also participate in the emerging tokenized securities asset class.”
SharesPost has facilitating secondary trading for private securities for some time now thus helping some companies to remain private longer.
shareNow, SharesPost is combining additional regulatory approvals with its unregistered securities trading tech stack to move into crypto. In addition to secondary trading, SharesPost said it will also` enable investors to custody digital assets in a SharesPost’s Private Brokerage Account, as well as receive investment research and transaction data on leading token issuers.
John Wu, CEO of SharesPost Digital Securities, said the progression from the traditional private placement approach to blockchain driven platforms is happening faster than financial and regulatory communities could have anticipated.
“Our clients let us know they wanted to invest in many of the new technologies and disruptive business models funded by ICO’s and to be able to trade their coins and tokens. We are pleased to have taken a major step forward in making that a reality.”