Various Divisions and Offices of the SEC issued new guidance and engaged in dialogue with the industry related to crypto assets, including the following:

The Division of Corporation Finance recently issued two no-action letters to the DoubleZero Foundation and Fuse Crypto Limited, stating that it would not recommend enforcement action if their tokens (2Z and FUSE) are offered and sold as described in the respective no-action requests without registering them as securities. These no-action letters are a significant development for the crypto industry and the Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) sector, providing clarity as to the regulatory implications of utility-focused tokens. The DoubleZero token rewards users for contributing resources (underutilized private fiber lines) into a shared high-speed network. The Fuse token rewards customers for participating in green energy initiatives and optimizing energy delivery. The no-action requests focus on whether each token is an “investment contract” under the Howey test (and thus a security). The SEC’s responding no-action letters conclude that the value of each token is derived from participants’ own technical and operational efforts, rather than an expectation of profit from the efforts of others or from speculative investment or secondary market trading. Therefore, SEC staff agreed not to treat them as securities. See https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/no-action-interpretive-exemptive-letters/division-corporation-finance-no-action/doublezero-092925 and https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/no-action-interpretive-exemptive-letters/division-corporation-finance-no-action/fuse-crypto-limited-112425.

In December 2025, the Office of Investor Education and Assistance issued an Investor Bulletin to help educate retail investors about the ways investors can hold crypto assets. The bulletin provided an overview of types of crypto asset custody and provided tips to help investors decide how best to hold such assets. See https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins.

Also in December 2025, the Division of Trading and Markets issued several new pieces of guidance to provide greater clarity on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto asset securities. The Division issued a statement expressing its views on how a broker-dealer can maintain physical possession of a crypto asset security it carries for the account of a customer for purposes of complying with Securities Exchange Act Rule 15c3-3 (the Customer Protection Rule). That same day, Division staff supplemented its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to provide guidance for national securities exchanges (NSEs) and alternative trading systems (ATSs) on trading and settlement issues, particularly with respect to "pairs trading" where one of the crypto assets is a security and the other a crypto asset that is not a security. This new guidance supplements previous SEC staff guidance; however, additional questions remain and have been posed by Commissioner Hester Peirce to solicit feedback from the Crypto Task Force and other market participants. Both the SEC and FINRA continue to consider additional regulatory guidance and rulemaking updates. This expanded guidance, along with the DTC no-action letter described in a separate post, will allow financial intermediaries to support multiple asset types and opens the door for further development or a robust tokenized securities market, moving ever closer to Chairman Atkins stated vision of a “SuperApp Exchange” capable of seamlessly accommodating diverse financial instruments within a single platform. See https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/trading-markets-121725-statement-custody-crypto-asset-securities-broker-dealers and https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/staff-guidance/trading-markets-frequently-asked-questions/frequently-asked-questions-relating-crypto-asset-activities-distributed-ledger-technology.

Finally, the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, led by Commissioner Peirce, hosted a roundtable event in December 2025 to facilitate an in-depth discussion on policy matters related to financial surveillance and privacy. In his opening statement, Chairman Atkins opened the event, noting that the participants were set to “wrestle with a question that, at its core, is profoundly American: whether people can participate in modern finance without surrendering their privacy.” He went on to discuss the tension between the federal government’s obligation to protect Americans from national security interests and threats, and what he described as regulators’ “voracious appetite for data,” and the freedom to conduct one’s affairs, including financial affairs, free from government and other surveillance. We expect more to come from these discussions. See https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/meetings-events/crypto-task-force-roundtable-financial-surveillance-privacy.