SEC clears ARK Venture Fund for tokenized and exchange share classes
By Crypto Wire
September 23, 2026
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has granted ARK Venture Fund and ARK Investment Management amended exemptive relief under the Investment Company Act, letting the registered closed-end fund create two new share classes: an Exchange Class designed for listing on a national securities exchange, and a Tokenized Class whose ownership records can sit on distributed-ledger technology and potentially trade on regulated alternative trading systems. Same-day desks cite Release No. IC-36333 as the order number. In plain English: Washington cleared a legal structure for a tokenized registered-fund share class—it did not announce that those shares are already trading.
That distinction matters more than the headline. Prior ARK interval-fund relief assumed shares would not list on an exchange or quotation medium and that a meaningful secondary market was not expected. The amended order supersedes that posture so the fund may now pursue (i) exchange-listed shares and (ii) tokenized shares that may trade on one or more ATSs subject to Regulation ATS, operated by SEC-registered broker-dealers that are FINRA members, or be quoted on other permitted mediums. Coverage from NewsBTC and CVJ.AI, timed for September 23 morning cycles, stresses the same caveat: permission is not a launch date, and ARK has not published an immediate commercial go-live in the materials those desks validated.
For Plain English Policy readers, the Tokenized Class is the crypto-adjacent piece. Ownership can be recorded via DLT, which is a different claim than “we put a fund ticker on a blockchain for marketing.” The SEC order addresses whether a registered investment company can maintain blockchain-based ownership records while still living inside transfer, custody, and investor-protection rules that already apply to ’40 Act funds. That is regulatory infrastructure for tokenized fund interests—not a spot bitcoin ETF filing and not a retail NFT mint.
Process context helps keep the chronology honest. Public materials show ARK’s application path running through mid-2026 amendments after a May filing, with an August notice stage before the grant narrative now circulating as IC-36333. Desks should cite the release number and the Exchange Class / Tokenized Class split rather than inventing AUM flowing into a live tokenized share or naming an ATS that ARK has not confirmed. If Federal Register or SEC.gov pages lag the secondary write-ups, treat NewsBTC/CVJ.AI as same-day secondary coverage of the order—not as substitutes for the Commission text when you need exact exemptive conditions.
Why NFT and crypto desks should still care: tokenized RWAs and on-chain fund wrappers keep colliding with securities law. Yesterday’s KuCoin xStocks listing and NEAR/Ondo tokenized-stock routing showed more CEX and L1 distribution rails for equity wrappers outside U.S. person access. ARK’s order is the inverse signal—an SEC path for a registered fund to keep a tokenized class inside the Investment Company Act. Collectors will not mint this; allocators watching on-chain settlement will. The practical follow-up is whether ARK names a custodian/ATS stack and when Exchange Class listing paperwork appears.
What not to invent from IC-36333: a live Tokenized Class ticker, peer-to-peer wallet trading already open to retail, DTC share equivalence for every DLT record, or automatic approval for other managers without their own relief. Cite the two share classes, DLT ownership language, ATS/FINRA broker-dealer framing in the application materials, the “permission ≠ launch” caveat, and the registered closed-end / interval-fund setting. Follow-ups belong to ARK’s first commercial circular and any ATS that actually quotes the Tokenized Class.
Bottom line: SEC Release IC-36333 lets ARK Venture Fund build an exchange-listed class and a DLT-recorded Tokenized Class under amended ’40 Act relief—regulatory clearance for tokenized registered-fund shares, with trading still unannounced.
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