SEC Proposes Regulation Crypto Assets as Trump Presses Congress on CLARITY Act
The Securities and Exchange Commission has put its first crypto-specific offering rules on the table, and a day later the White House used a gathering of industry chiefs to push Congress to finish the job. Together, the two events mark the most concrete progress on U.S. crypto rules in months.
On Tuesday, August 18, the SEC proposed “Regulation Crypto Assets,” a framework that would give token projects defined ways to raise money in the United States without full securities registration, and would set out when a token stops being tied to a securities offering at all. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump hosted crypto and finance executives at the White House and called on lawmakers to pass “a fair version” of the CLARITY Act, the market structure bill stalled in the Senate.
What the SEC proposed
According to the agency’s press release, the proposal builds on the Commission’s March 2026 interpretation of how securities law applies to certain crypto assets. It has three main parts.
The first is a one-time startup exemption that would let a project raise up to $5 million over four years. Law firm Sidley Austin notes in its summary that the issuer would not need to be a U.S. entity, general solicitation would be allowed, and no financial statements would be required, though the project would have to publish principles-based disclosures free of charge.
The second is a fundraising exemption allowing up to $75 million in any 12-month period. Sidley describes two tiers, one capped at $20 million and one at $75 million, with an offering statement on a new Form 1-CRYPTO, financial statements that must be audited at the higher tier, staff qualification before sales begin, and ongoing reporting afterward. Issuers using this route would need to be U.S.-based.
The third piece is a conditional safe harbor. If its conditions are met, a crypto asset would be treated as no longer subject to an “investment contract” for the purposes of federal securities law. Chairman Paul Atkins said the safe harbor would apply once an issuer “has completed or permanently ceased all essential managerial efforts” it had promised buyers. In practice, that means a token sold to fund development could shed its securities status once the promised building is done, with the issuer filing a transition report to support that conclusion.
The proposal would also preempt state registration requirements for offerings under the two exemptions and for certain secondary market trades, which would spare projects from qualifying in each state separately. The public comment period runs 60 days from publication in the Federal Register.
“Regulation Crypto Assets seeks to provide crypto asset entrepreneurs and market participants with clear pathways” to raise capital, Atkins said in the release. The agency also said it wants to reduce the incentive for issuers to launch offshore.
Why the rule matters
For most of the past decade, U.S. token projects faced a choice between a full securities registration that few could complete, a private placement limited to wealthy investors, or launching outside the country. The SEC’s earlier approach relied heavily on enforcement cases to define the boundaries. A formal rule with dollar limits, disclosure forms and an exit ramp from securities status would give founders and their lawyers a written map for the first time.
It is still a proposal. The text can change after comments, and a future Commission could revisit it. That is one reason the industry has kept pushing Congress for a statute rather than relying on agency rules alone.
The White House push
That push was on display on Wednesday. According to CoinDesk, Trump told the gathering that Congress should “take the next step” on market structure legislation, describing the CLARITY Act as a way to keep the U.S. ahead of China. Executives from Coinbase, Gemini, Ripple and Chainlink Labs were among those present, and Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig also attended, according to Bloomberg.
Atkins said at the event that the SEC’s new proposal would give entrepreneurs certainty and that Congress should pass the bill so the president can sign it. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the legislation would make the administration’s progress durable. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said Trump asked a smaller group for feedback in the Oval Office and that the administration views the bill as “very doable” with a few fixes, according to CoinDesk.
The obstacles are real. The Senate left for its August recess without a test vote, and the bill still needs 60 votes, which means winning over several Democrats. CoinDesk reports that Democratic negotiators want ethics limits on the president’s personal crypto ventures, a demand that has not been resolved. A procedural vote has been set for September 15, giving the bill a narrow window before lawmakers leave again ahead of the November elections.
What comes next
The policy calendar stays busy. The Treasury Department set out its proposed approach to stablecoins under the GENIUS Act on Monday, according to CoinDesk, and the CFTC’s new Innovation Advisory Committee is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Thursday, with crypto exchange and prediction market executives on its roster.
For crypto readers, the two events point in the same direction but carry different weight. The SEC’s proposal can move forward on its own timeline and does not depend on Congress. The CLARITY Act, if passed, would settle the bigger question of which agency regulates which tokens and give the rules the permanence of law. The comment period on Regulation Crypto Assets and the September Senate vote now set the calendar for the rest of the year.