The SEC is behind the clock on its own crypto rules

Over the last year plus, Paul Atkins has been a strong proponent of providing breathing room about securities law for crypto startups. This month, he actually has to document it.

On Wednesday, the SEC released its updated 2026 agenda, which schedules Regulation Crypto for July and reflects the agency's first real rulemaking drive under Atkins, as opposed to yet another round of guidance or speeches.

Start-up companies would have a four-year period within which they could raise $5 million in one year until they matured as a network.

A separate fundraising exemption would let entrepreneurs raise up to $75 million through investment contracts tied to certain crypto assets.If an issuer has abandoned a project and no longer actively managed it, the token associated with that project would not even be treated as security anymore.

Atkins has been down this road before. He listed out almost this exact framework in March, taking direct aim at Commissioner Hester Peirce's 2020 Token Safe Harbor proposal. What has changed is the urgency behind actually filing it.

Why the rush

Guidance is soft. A rule is hard. A memo-keeping approach opens the door for a future SEC to wipe clean everything Atkins has done thus far: staff guidance, interpretive releases, no-action letters. A formally published rule can't. And once it goes in the Federal Register, to undo it is to start all over with notice-and-comment, and that takes years.

Two watches are ticking against him. Peirce, on whose framework this rule is based and now leads the SEC's Crypto Task Force: Peirce leaves in November for a law school professorship at Regent University. Her term was set to end in June of 2025, a date back that she could only reach because no confirmed successor had appeared. The next person would slow this down, write it out or drop it altogether.

The other clock is political. The Trump SEC will not be around to keep this act going forever, anything that remains as informal advice when there is a new administration will be open to unwind. Atkins would like this to be locked in as a rule prior to either deadline.

Congress still holds the bigger card

A reminder that the SEC rule does not exist in a bubble It is meant to operate in tandem with the CLARITY Act, the bill that would officially separate regulation of crypto between the SEC and CFTC. The House passed that bill in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee approved it by a 15-9 roll call vote in May, but for it to have any chance this year, full Senate Avenue approval would need to be completed before August. Miss that window and the November midterms consume whatever remains of the legislative calendar.

The SEC's approach hasn't been well received by everyone either. Citadel Securities argues that exemptions dilutes effectiveness of oversight, and called for a complete notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The Blockchain Association believes that's too cautious arguing that the SEC has relied on exemptions many times in past without incident.

So the real story isn't just what Atkins proposes this month. It is whether Congress can offer crypto a lasting legal footing before the political winds shift, or if the industry is forced propped up by a rule that is as strong as those in power at the SEC.

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