The SEC published Regulation Crypto Assets in the Federal Register on 21 August, opening a 60 day comment period on a proposal approved on 18 August through a seriatim vote rather than the public meeting that had been scheduled for 14 August and cancelled the day before, citing an unforeseen scheduling issue.
The substance has not changed since the cancelled meeting, only the path there. The proposal creates two exemptions from Securities Act registration: a startup route allowing up to $5 million raised over four years, and a fundraising route allowing up to $75 million in a 12 month period once an issuer moves past an initial $20 million tier. A separate safe harbour addresses when a token stops counting as a security, tied to the point at which an issuer has finished the managerial work it promised investors.
The manner of the vote is itself a signal. Commissioners can approve a release individually without convening in public, and doing so here, days after citing scheduling trouble for the cancelled meeting, reads as the agency choosing speed over the appearance of deliberation. Bitcoin and ether both rallied through the week the proposal became public, with spot ETFs pulling in their largest daily inflows in months.
None of this is a rule yet. A comment period produces revisions, not certainty, and the commission that eventually adopts a final version could look different from the all Republican bench that proposed this one. The joint SEC and CFTC guidance that classified bitcoin, ether, solana and XRP as digital commodities in March rests on exactly the same footing, guidance a differently composed commission could unwind on its own authority. What the market is pricing as resolved is still, formally, a proposal open for comment.
