As of March 2026, the SEC’s own position is that most crypto assets are not securities — only a category it calls “digital securities” falls under its jurisdiction, according to interpretive
As of March 2026, the SEC’s own position is that most crypto assets are not securities — only a category it calls “digital securities” falls under its jurisdiction, according to interpretive guidance issued jointly with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and reported by CoinDesk. But that guidance is not a binding rule. A formal rulemaking that would carry more legal weight was still pending when CoinDesk published its report on March 17, 2026.
On March 17, 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly released what Chairman Paul Atkins called a “token taxonomy,” sorting crypto assets into categories including digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins and digital securities, per CoinDesk. Atkins told reporters the distinction returns the SEC to what he called its core mission of overseeing securities markets, and said in a statement that the interpretation gives market participants “a clear understanding of how the Commission treats crypto assets,” per CoinDesk.
The guidance sets out a version of the investment contract test: a digital asset counts as a security when its issuer offers it as an investment in a common enterprise with promised profits tied to the issuer’s efforts, according to CoinDesk’s account of the document. That status is not necessarily permanent — the SEC’s guidance says the contract ends once the issuer has either satisfied or failed to satisfy those promises, per CoinDesk, at which point the token stops being treated as a security. The guidance also states that airdrops, protocol staking and protocol mining fall outside the SEC’s reach into digital securities, per CoinDesk.
CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said his agency was adopting the same taxonomy as part of a push toward what he called “harmonization” between the two regulators, and said he thought it was “time to build in the United States,” per CoinDesk.
Under former Chairman Gary Gensler, the SEC pursued what CryptoSlate described as an aggressive litigation strategy against firms including Coinbase and Ripple, which drew criticism for creating regulatory uncertainty, according to CryptoSlate’s reporting.
On Feb. 20, 2025, the SEC replaced its Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit with a new Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, or CETU, per CryptoSlate. Laura D’Allaird, formerly deputy director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, was named its first chief. CryptoSlate reported the unit comprises 30 attorneys and fraud specialists spread across nine SEC regional offices. Acting Chair Mark Uyeda said the unit would work with Commissioner Hester Peirce’s Crypto Task Force while aiming to apply its enforcement resources carefully, per CryptoSlate.
Paul Atkins was sworn in as SEC Chairman on April 21, 2025, a move The Block’s headline links to a shift from enforcement-first regulation toward building compliance frameworks. On July 18, 2025, the GENIUS Act passed as, per The Block’s headline, the first comprehensive federal legislation regulating stablecoins. Separately, CryptoSlate reported that since January 2025 the SEC has rescinded its SAB 121 accounting guidance, clarified crypto asset classification rules, and approved new spot crypto ETFs, changes CryptoSlate ties to President Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order establishing the Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets.
CETU’s mandate lists six priority areas, per CryptoSlate: fraud schemes driven by artificial intelligence; manipulation carried out through the dark web and social media; hacks that expose material nonpublic information; takeovers of brokerage accounts; fraud tied to crypto assets; and compliance with cybersecurity rules. CryptoSlate’s own reading of this list is that the unit’s crypto focus targets fraud involving blockchain technology as a transaction medium, rather than treating most digital assets as unregistered securities in the way Gensler’s SEC did. That is CryptoSlate’s interpretation of the unit’s stated priorities, not a direct SEC characterization of its own scope, and this page cannot verify it against the SEC’s original charter document because that document is not in the evidence available here.
This account relies on secondary reporting from CryptoSlate and CoinDesk, not the SEC’s original guidance document, enforcement charter, or press releases, so it cannot quote the taxonomy’s precise legal text or CETU’s founding order directly.
The Block is held here only as a headline, with no article text available, so the claims about Atkins’s swearing-in date and the GENIUS Act’s passage are attributed to that headline alone and cannot be treated as independently verified reporting from that outlet’s full article.
As of CoinDesk’s March 17, 2026 report, the SEC’s “most crypto assets are not themselves securities” position was interpretive guidance, which CoinDesk explicitly notes does not yet carry the weight of a formal rule. Atkins told reporters a formal rulemaking proposal — expected to run more than 400 pages and to include an “innovation exemption” — was coming “in a week or two.” This page’s evidence does not extend to whether that rulemaking was ever published, what it said, or whether it changed the taxonomy described here.
Whether Congress passed the market-structure legislation Atkins said would be needed to make this shift permanent — he pointed to ongoing congressional work, and CryptoSlate separately reported that odds for one such bill, the CLARITY Act, had fallen — is also outside what this evidence pack can confirm.
Finally, CryptoSlate’s characterization of CETU as fraud-focused rather than securities-enforcement-focused is that outlet’s own reading of the unit’s published priorities. This page repeats it as analysis attributed to CryptoSlate, not as a verified statement from the SEC itself.
Every fact above is attributed to one of these reports. Where they disagree, the article says so.
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