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Today’s top news:
The SEC & CFTC Declare “Most Crypto Assets” Are Not Securities
SEC Chair Paul Atkins took the stage at the DC Blockchain Summit Tuesday and issued the most consequential regulatory guidance for crypto in a decade.
The headline: “most crypto assets” are not securities.
Bitcoin mining rewards, staking, and airdrops are explicitly not securities.
The SEC formally divided the digital asset universe into five buckets: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities. Only the last category falls under SEC jurisdiction as securities.
The practical implication is sweeping. For years, the Howey Test, the vague standard Gensler weaponized, created legal risk for nearly every token. Atkins called that approach a “persistent failure to provide clarity.”
SEC Declares 'Most Crypto Assets' Not Securities, Including Staking, Airdrops and Bitcoin Mining
Under his taxonomy, most NFTs and meme coins would be digital collectibles (outside SEC purview). Most protocol tokens would be digital commodities or tools (CFTC territory). Only tokenized stocks and bonds remain squarely with the SEC.
Atkins also previewed a safe harbor framework coming in the “next few weeks”, including exemptions for startups under $5M experimenting with crypto in their first four years, and for entrepreneurs raising up to $75M via crypto investment contracts.
He said he expects proposed rules for public comment soon. He also directed SEC staff to allow brokers to offer crypto and traditional securities side by side, without needing multiple licenses - a structural change that could open crypto to a new class of registered intermediaries.
“We’re not the Securities and Everything Commission,” Atkins said, drawing applause.
Key Details
The 68-page document provides interpretative guidance across the following aspects of crypto and digital assets.
Dig In Deeper
The SEC went further than just defining these categories - they also provided examples to help clarify the guidance.
Why It Matters
The Gensler SEC never published rules for crypto.
It governed by lawsuit and enforcement actions.
Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Ripple and Uniswap all faced enforcement actions under the theory that their tokens were already securities and everyone should have known.
There was no formal taxonomy, no safe harbors, no clarity on who was in or out.
The message to builders was unmistakable: launch offshore, carve out U.S. users from airdrops, and lawyer up.
The practical result was a decade of capital flight. Projects structured around Cayman Islands DAOs, blocked American IPs from token sales, and treated the U.S. as a market to route around.
Now there is finally clear guidance for the industry, with concrete definitions of terms and clear examples.
And this guidance changes three things concretely:
It’s a breath of fresh air. And the beginning of a new crypto era in the US…
This article has been published in decrypt.co via Yahoo News.
Morning Minute: The SEC & CFTC Declare 'Most Crypto Assets' Are Not Securities
After a decade of lawsuits, the SEC and CFTC finally wrote the rules for digital assets.
finance.yahoo.com
