Securitize appoints former SEC official as president

• Key insight: Securitize confirmed former SEC Markets and Trading Director Brett Redfearn to president of the company as it preps to go public and tokenize securities.
• What's at stake: Bringing regulatory expertise to the leadership of a tokenization firm signals continued overlap between traditional capital markets and digital finance.
• Forward look: Securitize has a nonbinding agreement with the NYSE to settle tokenized securities on-chain should the exchange get SEC approval.

The tokenization fintech Securitize is adding a former SEC official to its leadership as it makes plans to go public and to tokenize securities for the New York Stock Exchange in the coming months.

Brett Redfearn, former director of the Division of Trading and Markets for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has been appointed president of the company as of Thursday. He will also join Securitize's board of directors.

"Securitize is perfectly positioned to lead the implementation of the tokenized financial infrastructure of the future," Redfearn said in a statement.

Redfearn served as director of the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets from 2017 through 2020, and originally joined Securitize as a senior advisor in the fall of 2021. 

He also briefly worked as head of capital markets at Coinbase in 2021 before founding his own advisory firm. Before his time at the SEC, Redfearn worked in capital markets at JPMorganChase for over a decade.

"Brett has been instrumental in how modern markets are structured and regulated," Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said in a statement. "As tokenization becomes an integral part of core financial infrastructure, his experience will help ensure this transition is built to improve existing market structure, with the protections and integrity investors expect."

Securitize plans to go public through a SPAC merger, announced last fall, with an affiliate of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald. The proposed business combination values Securitize at a $1.25 billion pre-money equity value, according to a company statement. The firm also plans to tokenize its own equity as part of the public debut, which has not yet been scheduled.

Securitize previously raised $48 million in 2021 through a funding round co-led by Morgan Stanley and Blockchain Capital.

Securitize is also working with the New York Stock Exchange to build a blockchain for tokenized securities. On March 24, the Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, announced a memorandum of understanding (a nonbinding agreement in anticipation of future action) in which the exchange plans to partner with Securitize for on-chain settlement of tokenized security transactions.

Securitize Markets is also expected to become one of the broker-dealer participants on the NYSE's upcoming digital trading platform, which is awaiting regulatory approval from the SEC, according to a statement from ICE.

As capital market infrastructure providers like the NYSE, DTCC and Nasdaq move toward tokenized markets, Redfearn's appointment signals a continued overlap between traditional and digital market infrastructures, especially as tokenization for real-world assets (such as securities) becomes mainstream.

Rajeev Bamra, associate managing director for the digital economy group at Moody's Ratings, told American Banker that past forms of tokenized securities have mostly focused on distribution over infrastructure.

"Recent announcements by important market infrastructure providers suggest a more substantive shift toward re-architecting foundational elements of the securities market, including settlement, custody and ownership records," he said.

The development could, according to Bamra, make asset lifecycle processes more efficient and potentially support greater interoperability between digital finance and capital market infrastructure. 

"However, it also presents potential risks related to operational resilience and market fragmentation," he said.