The Case for Public Markets | Cromwell Coulson on Small-Cap Capital Formation, Disclosure, and SEC Offering Reform

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Cromwell Coulson, CEO of OTC Markets Group (OTCM), joins Jack to explain how the over-the-counter market actually works, from OTCQX-traded giants like Roche and Adidas down to the Expert Market. He says the Wolf of Wall Street’s Stratton Oakmont stocks traded on Nasdaq, not the pink sheets, and that the vast majority of stock-promotion dollar volume has since moved to the exchanges. Cromwell walks through the SEC’s proposal to modernize registered offerings, which would preempt state blue-sky rules and open at-the-market (ATM) offerings to OTCQX and OTCQB companies for the first time. He also explains his tiering and warning-flag system, including the famous skull and crossbones, and why he runs OTC Markets on a “Costco model” with lower margins than the exchanges. Jack and Cromwell discuss why the number of public companies has shrunk, how regulation and the tax treatment of intangibles favor private equity, and what it would take to make going public attractive again. They close on tokenization: what’s real, what’s hype, and why Cromwell thinks it will end up as plumbing, much as IP protocol did for telecom. Recorded November 2, 2026. 

Cromwell Coulson on X https://x.com/cromwellc

Jack Farley on X https://x.com/JackFarley96OTC Markets Group website: https://www.otcmarkets.com/

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