SEC Review of ARK's $562M Tokenized Share Class Puts Ethereum (ETH) Tokenization in Focus

SEC Filing Targets $562M Fund

ARK Investment Management has formally asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a tokenized share class for its $562 million ARK Venture Fund, a step that would let the registered interval fund record ownership on distributed ledger technology. The second amended application, filed under file number 812-16031, seeks to add a Tokenized Class alongside a new Exchange Class by modifying the exemptive order the regulator granted in November 2025. ARK filed the original request on May 20, amended it on June 11, and submitted the current version on Aug. 7; the Commission published notice of the request on Aug. 24 and set Sept. 18 as the deadline for hearing requests. The filing invokes sections 6(c), 18 and 17(d) of the Investment Company Act together with Rules 23c-3 and 17d-1. Under the proposal, Tokenized Class shares could trade on alternative trading systems registered under Regulation ATS, on other quotation mediums, or peer-to-peer between approved wallet addresses — though ARK explicitly does not seek permission to list or quote the shares on decentralized finance platforms. Exchange Class shares, by contrast, would list on a national securities exchange. Notably, the application names no blockchain, tokenization provider or new transfer agent; Bank of New York Mellon currently fills the operational roles. The filing also states the applicants are not seeking relief over how a fund maintains shareholder records on a ledger. ARK does hold a financial link to tokenization firm Securitize — the portfolio carries Securitize equity plus a $10 million convertible note paying 5% interest and maturing in September 2028 — and Securitize this year launched a tokenized high-yield fund offering interests across Avalanche, Ethereum (ETH), Solana and Sui, though the application stops short of giving Securitize any role in the proposed class.

T+0 Settlement and Market Scale

Details in the amended filing show how differently the two proposed classes would behave after issuance. Tokenized transactions may settle on a T+0 basis, while Exchange Class trades are expected to follow the standard T+1 cycle. Tokenized shares would carry no sales load and could be distributed through registered broker-dealers or directly by the fund's transfer agent at net asset value — unlike a free crypto airdrop, which involves no subscription process — and expense ratios for the new classes have not yet been fixed. ARK has also signaled it does not plan to launch the class immediately even if approved. For scale, the fund reported $562 million in total assets as of Jan. 31, with existing Class D (ARKVX), Class S (ARKSX) and Class U (ARKUX) shares priced at $49.83, $49.69 and $49.70 respectively as of May 15 — an aggregate non-affiliate market value that functions as the vehicle's public market cap of roughly $912.6 million. The fund is separate from the $6.55 billion ARK Innovation ETF. The surrounding market is moving quickly: tokenized private equity and venture instruments represented about $2.35 billion across 25 assets and 7,263 holders as of Sept. 8, per RWA.xyz data, with Blockchain Capital's BCAP token alone accounting for roughly $960 million. PwC projects tokenized investment assets to compound at about 41% annually, reaching $715 billion by 2030. In January, three SEC divisions stated in joint guidance that the form in which a security is issued does not change how federal securities laws apply — the stance that underpins filings like ARK's. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

Sept. 18 Hearing Deadline in Play

COINOTAG's read: the decisive document is the SEC's own notice of the request, which confirms the commission may issue an order on the requested relief once the hearing window closes at 5:30 p.m. ET on Sept. 18 — absent objections, approval is presumed. This remains a proposal, not a final rule: ARK is deliberately working through the existing Investment Company Act process while Chair Paul Atkins' innovation exemption and the Aug. 18 Regulation Crypto Assets proposal, with comments due Oct. 20, remain unfinished. The order, if granted, binds only ARK's interval fund — but it would hand every registered fund manager a tested template for combining blockchain recordkeeping with regulated secondary trading.