🪙 SEC Chair: ICOs are not securities

PLUS: All eyes on Fed

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Cryptopolitan News
December 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

SEC Chair Paul Atkins gave the ICO market a slight hope when he declared yesterday that most token offerings should not be treated as securities.

A complete reversal of the U.S. regulator’s position for more than a decade.

In remarks delivered at the Blockchain Association’s policy summit, Atkins said the agency sees ICO-style financing as a robust way for three broad classes of tokens: commonly known as network tokens, digital collectables and digital tools, none of which he believes qualifies as securities.

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Those sorts of things would not fall into the definition of a security

SEC Chair Paul Atkins

For an agency that said “nearly all ICOs are securities,” this is a big shift.

What the SEC’s new crypto map looks like

Atkins referred to the four-part token taxonomy that he introduced last month:

  • Network tokens → Not securities

  • Digital collectibles (memes, culture, internet assets) → Not securities

  • Digital tools (tickets, memberships, utility assets) → Not securities

  • Tokenized securities → SEC jurisdiction

👉 Everything except the last one falls under the CFTC, not the SEC: a much lighter regulatory environment.

Atkins summed it up bluntly:

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Three of those areas are on the CFTC side. We'll focus on tokenized securities.

⚡ Why this is a break-from-the-past moment ( A hope for revival? )

From 2017 through 2022, dozens of ICOs were sued by the SEC and that market died.

Now the chair of the SEC is speaking the quiet part out loud: Most ICOs were not securities to start with.

The implications:

  1. ICOs could be back, but this time legally.

  2. The CFTC takes over as the chief regulator of crypto (not the SEC)

  3. Token launches with culture, utility or decentralized networks green lighted

  4. That leaves tokenized securities, which are the strongest under the SEC’s purview

This, too, reopens the old turf battle between the CFTC and SEC, but with Congress now poised to grant greater authority to the CFTC, Atkins’ stance is extremely well-timed politically.

The industry is already constructing

You can see which way the wind is blowing.

Coinbase also recently announced an ICO platform as part of their $375M purchase of Echo last month. They weren’t waiting on Congress, they were waiting for regulatory posture, and Atkins just gave it.

If the safe harbor from “Project Crypto” is on the table, ICOs could make a comeback to U.S. founders as a mainstream fundraising method for the first time in seven years.

Cryptopolitan’s take:

If ICOs are no longer automatically assumed to be securities, retail-accessible public token offerings could re-emerge with a vengeance, specifically for: consumer networks, gaming & culture tokens, meme ecosystems and utility-driven platforms.

An ICO renaissance under U.S. sanction would redefine early stage crypto investing and this time you’d have the institutions on, not against it.

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📊 Market Watch

1️⃣ Aster removes fees on stock perps to pull traders in

Aster recently removed all fees on its stock perpetuals, in a stretch to try to transform itself into crypto’s mega marketplace for trading tokenized U.S. equities such as NVDA, TSLA and AAPL.

The timing aligns with a cautious but optimistic mood in U.S. equities ahead of the Fed’s expected rate cut today.

2️⃣ Coinbase CEO says EU has turned regulation into a revenue model

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong criticized the EU for making more in fines than it earns in taxes from European tech companies.

The remarks come after the relatively small sting of a €120M fine against X triggered a string of U.S. sniping, from Musk to policy makers alleging that Europe is turning digital regulation into a weapon.

3️⃣ Lummis signals crypto market structure bill is (Finally) moving

Sen. Cynthia Lummis says the much-anticipated U.S. crypto market structure bill is going to markup next week with a goal of circulating draft before Christmas.

The bill: which has been debated, redrafted and delayed for months would clarify jurisdiction between the S.E.C. and the C.F.T.C., while giving exchanges a clear path to compliance.

 đŸ‘€ On our feed

Will Fed cut or not? Let’s find out together 🤝

We will go live today at 1:30PM EST, on our X.

Want to know why it’s important, here’s a thread for you by our Social Media Manager 👇

🎭 Culture Watch

SpaceX is quietly preparing for what could become the largest IPO ever, targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation, eclipsing every tech listing on record and rivaling Saudi Aramco’s $29B mega-raise.

Potential timeline:

  • Earliest listing: mid–late 2026

  • Could slip to 2027 if markets wobble

  • New reports say a 2025 attempt isn’t off the table

Headline picks by our Head of Ops

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