Key Takeaways
- The SEC published interpretive guidance on March 17 classifying crypto into five distinct categories under federal securities law.
- Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and other named digital commodities are not securities under the new framework.
- A formal rulemaking proposal of more than 400 pages, including an innovation exemption, is expected within two weeks.
Mar. 18 (Crypto-News.Net) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued interpretive guidance on March 17, 2026, classifying crypto assets into five categories under federal securities law, with most assets falling outside the agency’s jurisdiction.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced the framework at the DC Blockchain Summit in Washington. “Most crypto assets are not themselves securities,” Atkins said. He added: “We’re not the Securities and Everything Commission.”
Five Categories Under the New Framework
According to the SEC guidance, the taxonomy establishes five distinct categories. Digital securities, meaning stocks and bonds issued on a blockchain, remain under SEC oversight. Digital commodities fall under CFTC jurisdiction and are not securities. Digital collectibles, such as NFTs representing art or gaming items, are not securities. Digital tools cover utility tokens, memberships, and credentials. Stablecoins, treated as payment mechanisms under the GENIUS Act (a pending stablecoin bill in Congress), form a fifth separate category.
The guidance names Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP among the digital commodities. It also excludes airdrops, protocol staking, and protocol mining, which are ways of earning crypto by helping run a blockchain network, from SEC securities oversight.
A digital asset initially sold as a securities offering may lose that status once the underlying network becomes sufficiently decentralized and its value no longer depends on a central team’s efforts, according to the SEC. The guidance establishes that economic substance, not the label applied to a token, determines its regulatory classification.
Joint Action With the CFTC
The SEC acted jointly with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees commodity markets and issued a coordinated statement saying it will administer the Commodity Exchange Act, the law governing futures and commodity markets, consistently with the new SEC framework. CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said the industry had “awaited clear guidance on the status of crypto assets under the federal securities and commodity laws” for too long.
The two agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (a formal agreement between agencies) on March 11, 2026, establishing joint coordination mechanisms for crypto oversight. The guidance is part of “Project Crypto,” an interagency effort announced on Jan. 29, 2026. The SEC and CFTC collaboration on crypto had been signaled earlier, alongside the formation of the SEC’s new crypto task force in early 2025.
Formal Rulemaking Expected Within Weeks
The interpretive guidance is not the final regulatory step. A formal rulemaking proposal of more than 400 pages is expected within one to two weeks of the March 17 announcement, according to Atkins. The proposal will include an innovation exemption to allow token trading on platforms regulated by the CFTC or by state regulators, according to Winston and Strawn, a law firm that analyzed the guidance.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), a Wall Street trade group, issued a position statement in December 2025 opposing broad categorical exemptions from securities rules for tokenized trading. SIFMA cited an October 2025 crypto flash crash and a November 2025 exchange collapse as evidence of risks from reduced oversight.
Reporting by Zoran Spirkovski
