The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a suite of 3x leveraged exchange-traded funds, while simultaneously reviewing what could become the first tokenized equities products in the United States, according to a CoinGeek report.

The approvals mark a notable shift in posture for an agency that spent years treating high-leverage crypto-adjacent products with caution. A 3x leveraged ETF amplifies daily moves of its underlying asset threefold. That structure cuts both ways: a 5% daily gain becomes 15%, and a 5% loss becomes 15%. Regulators have long flagged such products as unsuitable for retail holders who keep them longer than a single trading session.

For issuers, the clearance opens a distribution channel that pairs institutional-grade exchange infrastructure with aggressive leverage. It also signals that the SEC's Corporation Finance and Trading and Markets divisions are willing to countenance structured exposure tools they once delayed.

What comes next on tokenized equities?

The second development may carry more structural weight. The SEC is weighing whether to permit tokenized equities — shares represented as blockchain-based tokens rather than traditional book-entry records.

If approved, tokenized equities would allow around-the-clock settlement and trading outside conventional market hours. Custody, transfer agency and clearance would migrate, at least partly, onto blockchain rails. Proponents argue this compresses settlement from the current T+1 standard to near-instant finality. Critics, including former agency officials, counter that tokenized shares introduce new custody risks without solving problems that the existing market structure has already addressed.

No approval has been granted. The review is at a preliminary stage, and the SEC has not committed to a timeline. Applicants have not been named in public filings referenced by the report.

Why the sequencing matters

The two decisions point in the same direction. Approving leveraged ETFs first, while tokenized equities remain under review, suggests the agency is expanding product availability along the familiar ETF wrapper before confronting the harder question of on-chain share representation.

That sequencing is consistent with the SEC's recent pattern: it clears instruments that sit inside regulated exchange infrastructure before addressing products that would move any part of the settlement lifecycle onto public or permissioned chains.

There is a caveat worth stating plainly. Leveraged ETF approvals are an incremental step within an existing framework. Tokenized equities, by contrast, would require the agency to resolve unsettled questions about custody rules, transfer agents and the treatment of on-chain records under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Those questions remain unanswered.

The operational stakes for issuers

Asset managers stand to benefit most from the near term. Leveraged ETFs carry higher fee loads than plain-vanilla funds, and approval expands the addressable product shelf for issuers already operating in the crypto ETF market.

Tokenized equities, if they arrive, would reshape back-office operations more fundamentally. Transfer agents, custodians and clearing intermediaries would all face pressure to build or acquire blockchain-compatible infrastructure. The report does not specify which firms have filed, so the competitive field remains unknown.

In short, the SEC has opened one door and is testing another. The tokenized equities review carries no deadline, but the agency's decision on it will likely shape whether U.S. equity settlement moves on-chain within this decade.