If Congress can't give crypto firms long-sought legal protections, a top Wall Street regulator might try to do it on its own.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday plans to hold an open meeting during which the agency says it will consider proposing rules "to create a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets."
While the hearing notice contains few other details, industry watchers widely expect the rules to give regulatory relief to crypto firms that want to raise money through token sales. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins previewed such a path in a speech in March, at the time stating that he expected the SEC to release the proposal "in the coming weeks."
An SEC spokesperson did not respond to Barron's request for comment.
Friday's meeting could give the first indication of how President Donald Trump's administration plans to keeping fostering the crypto industry in lieu of congressional action.
Coinbase Global and other crypto firms have fought for years to convince Congress to pass a law that would exempt token issuers from many securities regulations. The Senate looked poised to move forward with such a bill, dubbed the Clarity Act, but delayed the vote amid opposition from some Democratic and Republican senators that was centered around Trump's own crypto investments and community bank concerns.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) says he still plans to hold a vote in mid-September, but with little time left before the November midterm elections, many analysts have all but written off the bill for this year.
White House advisors have made clear their frustration that the bill has stalled.
"The administration remains fully committed to getting the Clarity Act across the finish line in September...But we also can't afford to wait forever," wrote White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt in a post on X referencing the SEC hearing.
Friday's SEC proposal is "the first of several rulemakings the SEC will undertake to provide regulatory certainty for crypto assets after the Senate failed before the August recess to advance the Clarity Act on crypto market structure," wrote TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg in a research note.
Atkins' March speech included several ideas that the crypto industry cheered. He floated a time-limited "startup exemption" that would let entrepreneurs raise up to $5 million over a four-year period while avoiding securities registration. A separate "fundraising exemption" would let someone raise $75 million over one year. He also proposed giving crypto issuers a safe harbor that would exempt them from securities laws under certain conditions.
The digital assets industry has pushed for similar exemptions for years and "there's a sense that if Congress can't deliver maybe the SEC can," said Tyler Gellasch, president of the Healthy Markets Association, a trade group. Gellasch added that traditional firms could choose to challenge the SEC's authority to issue the exemptions.
"What they're proposing directly contradicts the entire premise of registered public offerings and the securities laws. It's not an easy thing for the agency to justify, and simply saying that they disagree with 90 years of Congressional and regulatory precedent won't likely hold up in court," Gellasch said.
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