SEC Drops Crypto Rule Trifecta on 2026 Agenda, CLARITY Act Still Twiddling Its Thumbs 🧾

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has formally placed three crypto-related rulemaking items on its 2026 regulatory agenda, according to the Agency Rule List, covering the offer and sale of crypto assets, broker-dealer financial responsibility rules, and Exchange Act amendments for crypto trading on alternative venues. SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the agenda is intended to align with the Trump administration's policy goals on crypto, including clarification on tokenized securities and capital raising with digital assets. The proposed rules may "provide greater certainty to the market, facilitate capital formation, and accommodate innovation within the crypto asset markets while, at the same time, ensuring that investors are adequately protected and provided with the information they need to make informed investment decisions," the Commission said in describing one of the proposals relating to the offer and sale of crypto assets, which explicitly contemplates "certain exemptions and safe harbors."

The first agenda item addresses how digital assets are offered and sold and is penciled in for a potential July release, which would be followed by a public comment period. Atkins said Tuesday that the agency is "embracing innovation to bring more products onshore, creating clear rules of the road for capital raising with crypto assets, and providing clarity as to how market participants can custody and facilitate trading of tokenized securities onchain." In March, the SEC chair said a crypto safe harbor could apply to startups worth up to $5 million seeking to experiment with crypto assets in their first four years, to entrepreneurs raising up to $75 million via investment contracts involving certain crypto assets, and to certain crypto assets once their creators have ceased all essential managerial efforts. The Commission has already proposed an innovation exemption allowing firms to issue and trade tokenized securities, specifically tokenized U.S. stocks, guidance that is likely to fall under this rulemaking.

The second item targets broker-dealer financial responsibility rules, with amendments proposed to Rules 15c3-1 (net capital), 15c3-3 (customer protection), 17a-3, and 17a-4 (books and records) to address how those rules apply to crypto assets. The SEC has previously outlined conditions allowing certain DeFi platforms to operate without registering as broker-dealers, and the coming rulemaking could codify or tighten those conditions. The third item covers Exchange Act Rule amendments addressing digital assets on alternative trading systems and national securities exchanges. Atkins initially said the broader Regulation Crypto package would be rolled out in January before the timeline slipped.

The agenda arrives as the CLARITY Act, a market structure bill widely expected to shift much of the oversight and enforcement of the industry from the SEC to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, remains unsigned in Congress. Stakeholders broadly agree that if the bill does not pass by August, it is unlikely to become law this year due to the November midterm elections. In March, Atkins said the SEC would move forward with an agency "bridge" to clarify crypto regulation but signaled he would defer to legislation if it were passed by Congress. Democratic lawmakers said in a January letter that the SEC's decision to drop enforcement actions against Binance, Coinbase, Ripple Labs, and Kraken, alongside Atkins' statement that "most crypto tokens are not securities," has "left a vacuum whereby securities violations by crypto firms are not enforced and U.S. investors are not protected." The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned a landmark ruling forcing presidents to fire federal agency commissioners only in extraordinary circumstances, with a 6-3 decision affirming President Donald Trump's right to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic FTC commissioner, further expanding his authority over regulators including the SEC.