The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was on the verge of revealing its first major rulemaking effort in the digital assets sphere, having been set to propose its "Regulation Crypto," but the agency cancelled the Friday meeting in an end-of-day statement on Thursday.
"Due to an unforeseen scheduling issue," the SEC is moving the meeting to "a later date," according to a statement from an agency spokesperson.
In the absence of progress in the Senate's Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the legislation that would establish a legal foundation for crypto market activity in the U.S., the industry had looked to the SEC to pick up the baton. The so-called Reg Crypto is expected to open a limited framework for issuing crypto securities without triggering agency registration requirements, and also to be able to later transition out of management of the project and, as a result, out of the SEC's regulatory radar. The sector will instead have to sit back again and see which branch of the government delivers first: SEC or Congress.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins had talked about this Reg Crypto rulemaking — "a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts" — as one of the central points of his digital assets regulatory plan. Until the SEC begins this more durable form of regulation, including public notices and comments, it's been reliant on a series of crypto policy statements meant to clarify the agency's position on digital assets.
Crypto insiders also anticipated the securities regulator may get into another of its major efforts: the "innovation exemption" for tokenizing securities. But that's also expected to be delayed.
The industry's other hope, that the Clarity Act can find Senate success when the chamber briefly returns to work next month, is hanging by a thread. It remains unclear whether the negotiations among lawmakers and the White House will find enough common ground to get the bill over the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate.