February 9, 2022
This is a very large and complicated rule. In its simplest form, any Retail security purchase should not be allowed to be executed through a ATS system. Allowing retail orders of securities to be executed in an ATS (aka Dark Pool) allows for non-transparent transactions that can affect the true value price of a security. As we have seen with many \"Meme\" stocks sometimes up to 90% of the retail volume is done in ATS (dark pools). These transaction artificially suppress a stocks true value and should not be allowed.
I have read many comments on this proposed rule. Several discuss cryptocurrencies and the crypto market place. I would state that a crypto-coin or crypto-token either purchased or not is not a currency or a security just as baseball cards are not securities or currency. While you can trade both and acquire them online in a boutique marketplace, they are neither currency or securities.
They only become currency once they are traded, sold or converted into a currency that is at lease moderately accepted in a marketplace for goods and services, such as the US Dollar.
Until that moment when someone converts their crypto-coins, tokens or Granddads baseball cards into cold hard fiat cash you do not have currency not have you engaged in a securities transaction regardless of the marketplace you traded them.