By Kenneth Corbin
Most crypto assets, be they currencies, collectibles, stablecoins, or some other variant within the fast-moving digital marketplace, don't qualify as securities, and therefore transactions won't be subject to stringent oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency said this week.
It was joined by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in issuing long-awaited guidance seeking to clarify what types of crypto assets rise to the level of securities, a designation that typically entails disclosure requirements that don't generally apply to commodities.
Traditional financial instruments such as stocks and bonds that have been tokenized to function as a crypto asset will still be considered securities. Most other common types of crypto assets won't meet that test, however. Under the guidance, digital commodities, a category that includes popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana, are considered part of a functional crypto ecosystem and not classified as securities.
Stablecoins exempt. Also generally exempt from the securities rules are digital collectibles, such as meme coins and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as well as stablecoins, whose value is pegged to a reserve asset, typically the U.S. dollar.
The new guidance is a stark reversal of the position that nearly all digital assets are securities that was espoused by Gary Gensler, who led the SEC during the Biden administration.
The current SEC, which led the effort to draft the guidance, appears content to take a back seat on oversight of most digital assets, letting the CFTC, which is generally considered a less fearsome regulator, take the lead.
"We aren't the securities and everything commission, anymore," SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said this week at a blockchain conference in Washington this week, according to prepared remarks. The conference was convened by the Digital Chamber, a crypto-advocacy group on whose board Atkins served before his tenure as chairman of the SEC.
The guidance was taken as good news for the crypto industry. "This is the clarity the industry has been waiting for," says Mari Tomunen, general counsel at DoubleZero, a networking-technology firm catering to distributed financial systems, such as blockchain environments.
Comment period. The SEC is now asking for public comments on its guidance, and Atkins indicated that the agency is looking into a rule-making process to codify the agency's position on some aspects of the digital-asset marketplace. The CFTC, which is operating under a formal collaboration agreement with the SEC, would likely be involved in that effort.
The SEC bills its guidance as a "token taxonomy" that steers the agency away from a campaign of enforcement actions against crypto offerings that didn't register as securities -- a hallmark of the Biden-era commission.
"For over a decade, market participants have operated without clear guidance on a fundamental question: when does a crypto asset implicate the federal securities laws?" Atkins said at the Digital Chamber conference. "I am pleased to announce that the SEC's persistent failure to provide clarity on this question is over."
The guidance additionally affirms that digital tools such as governance and access tokens won't be regulated as securities.
Most crypto assets, be they currencies, collectibles, stablecoins, or some other variant within the fast-moving digital marketplace, don't qualify as securities, and therefore transactions won't be subject to stringent oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency said this week. It was joined by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in issuing long-awaited guidance seeking to clarify what types of crypto assets rise to the level of securities, a designation that typically entails disclosure requirements that don't generally apply to commodities.
Traditional financial instruments such as stocks and bonds that have been tokenized to function as a crypto asset will still be considered securities. Most other common types of crypto activity won't meet that test, however. Under the guidance, digital commodities, a category that includes popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana, are considered part of a functional crypto ecosystem and not classified as securities.
Also generally exempt from the securities rules are digital collectibles, such as meme coins and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as well as stablecoins, whose value is pegged to a reserve asset, typically the U.S. dollar.
The new guidance is a stark reversal of the position that nearly all digital assets are securities that was espoused by Gary Gensler, who led the SEC during the Biden administration.
The current SEC, which led the effort to draft the guidance, appears content to take a back seat on oversight of most digital assets, letting the CFTC, which is generally considered a less fearsome regulator, take the lead.
"We aren't the securities and everything commission, anymore," SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said this week at a blockchain conference in Washington this week, according to prepared remarks. The conference was convened by the Digital Chamber, a crypto-advocacy group on whose board Atkins served before his tenure as chairman of the SEC.
The guidance was taken as good news for the crypto industry. "This is the clarity the industry has been waiting for," says Mari Tomunen, general counsel at DoubleZero, a networking-technology firm catering to distributed financial systems, such as blockchain environments.
Comment period. The SEC is now asking for public comments on its guidance, and Atkins indicated that the agency is looking into a rule-making process to codify the agency's position on some aspects of the digital-asset marketplace. The CFTC, which is operating under a formal collaboration agreement with the SEC, would likely be involved in that effort.
The SEC bills its guidance as a "token taxonomy" that steers the agency away from a campaign of enforcement actions against crypto offerings that didn't register as securities -- a hallmark of the Biden-era commission.
"For over a decade, market participants have operated without clear guidance on a fundamental question: when does a crypto asset implicate the federal securities laws?" Atkins said at the Digital Chamber conference. "I am pleased to announce that the SEC's persistent failure to provide clarity on this question is over."
The guidance additionally affirms that digital tools such as governance and access tokens won't be regulated as securities.
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 15:26 ET (19:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
