The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's "Regulation Crypto Assets" proposal — a three-part safe-harbor framework covering startup exemptions up to $5 million, fundraising exemptions up to $75 million, and an investment-contract off-ramp — is currently at the White House Office of Informatio...
"We will have Reg Crypto that we will be proposing here shortly. It's in fact at OIRA right now, which is the next step before being published." — Paul Atkins, SEC Chairman
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's "Regulation Crypto Assets" proposal — a three-part safe-harbor framework covering startup exemptions up to $5 million, fundraising exemptions up to $75 million, and an investment-contract off-ramp — is currently at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for final review. Publication in the Federal Register for public comment is expected in Q2–Q3 2026.
The proposal represents the most comprehensive attempt by a U.S. financial regulator to codify crypto asset treatment under federal securities law. It arrives after the SEC dismissed at least a dozen crypto enforcement cases inherited from the prior administration, dropped total enforcement actions to a 20-year low of 456 in FY2025, and issued a joint 68-page interpretive release with the CFTC that explicitly classifies BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, and LINK as digital commodities. The SEC is now operating with an all-Republican commission following the departure of Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw in early 2026, eliminating internal dissent on crypto policy direction.
The framework traces its lineage to Commissioner Hester Peirce's Token Safe Harbor proposals of 2020 and 2021 but expands the scope significantly. Where Peirce proposed a three-year grace period with decentralization exit tests, Reg Crypto offers a four-year startup window, a tiered fundraising regime, and a rule-based mechanism for crypto assets to permanently exit securities-law classification.
Reg Crypto establishes three distinct pathways for crypto projects to operate within or ultimately exit the federal securities framework.
Tier 1 — Startup Exemption. Early-stage projects may raise up to $5 million over a four-year grace period with reduced disclosure obligations. The exemption is non-exclusive, meaning projects can combine it with other federal securities law exemptions. Required disclosures are principles-based and must include information about the investment contract and the underlying crypto asset. Projects must file a notice upon relying on the exemption and again when exiting it.
Tier 2 — Fundraising Exemption. More established projects may raise up to $75 million within any 12-month period. This tier requires enhanced disclosures including financial condition information and financial statements. It remains compatible with other exemptive provisions under federal securities law, permitting layered compliance strategies.
Tier 3 — Investment Contract Safe Harbor. This rule-based framework defines the conditions under which a crypto asset ceases to be subject to federal securities laws. The trigger: the issuer has either fulfilled or permanently ceased the essential managerial efforts it represented or promised to investors under the original investment contract. In practice, this provides a legal off-ramp for tokens that achieve sufficient decentralization or functional maturity.
The $5 million and $75 million thresholds echo existing Regulation D and Regulation A structures in traditional securities law, a deliberate design choice to anchor crypto-specific rules within familiar regulatory architecture.
On March 17, 2026, the SEC and CFTC issued a joint 68-page interpretive release that supersedes the SEC staff's April 2019 "Framework for 'Investment Contract' Analysis of Digital Assets." That 2019 framework had underpinned nearly seven years of enforcement.
The new taxonomy classifies crypto assets into five categories:
The interpretive release also carves out several activities from securities treatment: protocol mining and staking where rewards follow protocol rules rather than managerial discretion; staking receipt tokens that evidence ownership without introducing profit expectations; wrapping of non-security assets into one-for-one redeemable representations; and certain airdrops involving no consideration and no profit expectation.
According to the SEC's press release, the guidance "acknowledges what the former administration refused to recognize — that most crypto assets are not themselves securities."
The policy shift is quantifiable. In FY2025, the SEC filed 456 total enforcement actions — the lowest figure in over 20 years and a 22% decrease from FY2024's 583 actions.
Adjusted monetary relief totaled approximately $2.6 billion ($1.4 billion in disgorgement plus $1.3 billion in penalties), a 33% reduction year-over-year. The headline $17.9 billion figure reported by the SEC is distorted by $14.9 billion from a single case — SEC v. Stanford International Bank — originally filed in 2009.
In crypto specifically, the SEC dismissed at least 12 enforcement actions inherited from the prior administration beginning in February 2025. High-profile dismissals include cases against Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, and Consensys. On March 31, 2026, the SEC voluntarily dismissed five additional cases involving crypto market manipulation allegations, including actions against CLS Global FZC LLC, Gotbit Consulting LLC, and ZM Quant Investment Ltd.
The SEC's own FY2025 report characterized the dismissed crypto cases as having "identified no direct investor harm, produced no investor benefit or protection," and cited "misinterpretation of the federal securities laws" and "misallocation of Commission resources."
Additionally, 1,095 matters were closed without enforcement action in FY2025 — a figure the agency disclosed as a new transparency measure.
For context, the Gensler-era SEC (2021–2024) brought 125 crypto-related enforcement actions and collected $6.05 billion in penalties across 98 resolved cases — nearly four times the prior administration's total.
The Reg Crypto proposal is currently at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a division of the White House Office of Management and Budget. OIRA review is the standard procedural step before any significant federal rulemaking is published in the Federal Register.
The typical OIRA review process involves:
Chairman Atkins indicated on April 6, 2026, that publication is expected "shortly" following OIRA review. Industry observers estimate the proposal could appear in the Federal Register by mid-summer 2026, with a final rule potentially arriving in late 2026 or early 2027.
Reg Crypto did not emerge in a vacuum. The framework traces directly to Commissioner Hester Peirce's Token Safe Harbor proposals, first introduced in February 2020 and updated in April 2021.
Safe Harbor 1.0 (February 2020) proposed a three-year grace period for network developers to build functional or decentralized networks, exempt from securities registration. It was a solo commissioner proposal with no commission backing.
Safe Harbor 2.0 (April 2021) added semi-annual reporting requirements, a block explorer mandate, and an exit report requiring either outside counsel analysis of decentralization status or registration under the Securities Exchange Act. Still a solo proposal — the Gensler-era commission showed no interest.
Reg Crypto (March 2026) expands the scope substantially. It adds a second fundraising tier, raises the dollar ceiling from implicit (Safe Harbor had no stated cap) to $75 million, extends the grace period from three to four years, and introduces a formal investment contract off-ramp mechanism. The proposal carries commission-level support — Peirce now leads the SEC's Crypto Task Force, which collected input through multiple roundtables and hundreds of written submissions throughout 2025 and early 2026.
The structural progression: from a dissenting commissioner's thought experiment, to an updated solo proposal, to formal commission rulemaking under White House review in six years.
Markets responded to the initial March 17 framework announcement. According to FinancialContent, the "Crypto 10" index rose 12% following the SEC-CFTC joint release. Coinbase shares had appreciated 145% year-over-year by early April 2026, though multiple factors contributed to that move.
A coalition of over 100 crypto firms, including Coinbase and Ripple, has separately pressed the Senate Banking Committee to mark up the Clarity Act to create a companion federal framework for digital assets. The legislative and regulatory tracks are running in parallel, though neither is guaranteed to reach completion.
The all-Republican SEC commission operates without internal dissent following Commissioner Crenshaw's departure. Crenshaw had issued formal dissents on crypto policy throughout 2025, including a statement accompanying the Ripple settlement characterizing the enforcement rollback as a "tremendous disservice to the investing public."
Consumer protection advocates have flagged the absence of a Democratic voice on the commission. The practical implication: no commissioner is currently positioned to demand additional investor safeguards during the public comment or final rule stages.
Several material questions remain unresolved:
Stablecoin yield. The framework defers to the GENIUS Act for payment stablecoin classification but does not address yield-bearing stablecoins, which straddle securities and banking law. Senator Thom Tillis has requested additional time to present a compromise on stablecoin yield to banking groups, delaying the Clarity Act.
DeFi protocol treatment. The SEC's separate safe harbor for DeFi front-ends (exempting approximately 1,100 interfaces from broker rules) operates independently from Reg Crypto. How decentralized protocols interact with the investment contract safe harbor remains interpretive.
State preemption. The framework does not explicitly address federal preemption of state blue-sky laws. Projects operating under the startup exemption may still face a patchwork of state-level requirements.
Enforcement gap. With 1,095 matters closed without action and 12+ crypto cases dismissed, the transition period creates an enforcement gap. Whether the Reg Crypto framework, once finalized, can retroactively address harms that occurred during this window is unclear.
OIRA timing. No public timeline has been provided for OIRA's review. Standard review periods vary significantly, and there is no guarantee of expedited processing.
Reg Crypto represents the SEC's first attempt to build a comprehensive regulatory architecture for crypto assets through formal rulemaking rather than enforcement precedent. The three-part safe harbor framework provides defined dollar thresholds, time-limited exemptions, and — notably — a legal mechanism for tokens to exit securities classification entirely.
The proposal's practical impact depends on three variables: OIRA's review timeline, the substance of public comments, and whether the parallel Clarity Act legislative process converges or conflicts with the SEC's administrative approach. The all-Republican commission structure accelerates the regulatory track but introduces durability risk — a future commission with different composition could revisit or revoke the framework.
What is measurable: the SEC has moved from 125 crypto enforcement actions and $6.05 billion in penalties over four years under Gensler to 456 total actions (the lowest in two decades) and a formal rulemaking proposal sitting at the White House. The policy vector is clear. The permanence is not.