As it has many times in years past, major cannabis company Canopy Growth (NASDAQ:CGC,TSX:WEED) ended up making one of the industry's most significant announcements of the year. It’s no secret that some Canadian growers are keenly interested in exploring opportunities in the US marketplace. These firms believe they will be able to leverage their access to mature capital to establish ventures in the country. However, so far that dream has stayed out of reach — due to federal sanctions on cannabis below the border, Canadian operators haven’t been allowed to pursue plant-touching businesses directly. Several firms have looked at alternative options to enter the US, but as time passes it's becoming increasingly complicated for Canadians to catch up with the mature crop of US multi-state operators. With that in mind, Canopy announced in late October that it will pursue the US cannabis market in a front-facing manner. It has approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange to set up Canopy USA, which will hold all of the company’s existing US interests. “We expect to unleash the full power of Canopy’s scalable and ideally-positioned U.S. cannabis ecosystem to unlock potential expansion opportunities," David Klein, Canopy’s CEO, said. The shocking development upended the way stakeholders and investors see the role of stock exchanges in the cannabis space, and what could be possible despite a lack of US federal protections. But one securities regulator is not so keen on all the changes Canopy’s decision may create. The NASDAQ objected to the Canadian company’s idea via a disclosure with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. “Nasdaq has proposed that such (financial) consolidation is impermissible under Nasdaq’s general policies,” the filing said, according to a report from MJBizDaily. Canopy and the NASDAQ are now in the midst of a back and forth and will have to hash out their different perspectives, with Canopy saying its listings are at risk. “As such, there can be no assurance that we will remain listed on the stock exchanges we are currently listed on, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations,” Canopy said in a disclosure. Overall, the Canopy situation remains an unknown scenario for investors in the cannabis industry. “I think everybody else is watching them very, very closely,” Butt told INN. The Purpose Investments expert explained that when it comes to leveraging the US play, many companies are looking for significant access to capital. “It's really that access to capital and access to investors and being able to develop volumes on their flows that a lot of these companies are looking for, and we think there's a potential opportunity here,” he said.