According to external sources, on 18 August, the United States Securities Commission (SEC) issued a 402-page proposal for the Regulation of Encrypted Assets, setting up for the first time a separate framework for the issuance of encrypted assets in the form of draft formal rules. The core document includes two types of exemption from registration of securities and a conditional safe harbour arrangement.

The timing of the publication of the proposal was also of concern. Just a few days ago, Clarity Act, which has been the subject of high expectations from a large number of industry, failed to enter the vote before the Senate recess, and the market is expected to move ahead with a marked slowdown in its year. According to the article, the introduction of the draft rules by the SEC at this time filled some of the gaps left by the stagnation of parliamentary legislation.

Two types of financing exemption

The proposal proposes to provide a two-tier exemption for “encrypted investment contracts for encoded assets”, rather than a uniform application for all currencies.

  • Initial exemption: up to $5 million within 4 years
  • Finance exemption: rolling up to $75 million within 12 months
  • Neither of the two types of immunity is exempt from liability for fraud.

Among them, the initial exemption was mainly for early projects. Issuers can replace traditional registration documents with more concise narrative disclosures and are not required to submit audited financial statements. The article states that this arrangement is intended to leave a longer development window for projects where the network is still under construction.

Another type of financing exemption is based on the scale of fund-raising. If funding does not exceed $20 million in the course of the year, the audit financial statements may not be submitted; if a maximum of $75 million is to be used, financial statements will be required and an ongoing disclosure obligation will be assumed. For projects that have been raised through private or SAFT, this means that the cost of subsequent compliance may increase significantly.

Safe harbour on exit.

The most interesting part of the proposal concerned a conditional safe harbour identified in an “investment contract”. As summarized in the article, if the issuer has completed or permanently ceases the critical management of previous commitments, the relevant currency may no longer be considered part of the investment contract after the conditions have been met.

This design attempts to answer a long-standing dispute about the point at which a token no longer depends on the continued efforts of the project party and thus exits the securities framework. According to the article, for the first time, the SEC tried to include this judgement in the rules ' path, instead of relying entirely on individual cases for enforcement or litigation.

It is also mentioned that this line of thought echoes part of the logic of justice in the Ripple case of 2023. At that time, the court held that the procedural sales of XRP on the exchange did not automatically constitute an investment contract. Today, the SEC is trying to institutionalize similar standards of judgement, but implementation may still be controversial.

Coverage remains limited

The proposal does not apply to all mainstream currencies. According to the text, the two types of exemption, which are addressed only to the issuer of the “covered investment contract”, have been classified in the March 2026 joint interpretation as a token for digital goods and are not within this framework.

According to the article, bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, etc., are not subject to these two types of exemptions. In contrast, the real impact is on new projects that have not yet reached a sufficient level of decentrization, or where functional maturity is still insufficient.

SEC has also set aside 60-day windows for the collection of public opinion, starting from the publication of the Federal Gazette on 21 August. According to the article, this means that discussions around disclosure standards, applicable targets and safe harbour trigger conditions will continue to rise for some time to come.