The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission moved to redraw the regulatory map for digital assets, publishing joint interpretive guidance with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and pairing it with a new Memorandum of Understanding between the two agencies. The package is designed to give the market clearer lines on which crypto assets fall inside securities law and which do not.
For the industry, the significance is immediate. The new framework gives traders, custodians and issuers a more defined starting point for compliance by separating assets that remain under SEC authority from those the agencies now treat as outside the securities perimeter.
The SEC’s interpretation on crypto assets is just the beginning and serves as a bridge while Congress works to advance market structure legislation.
Our rules must be clear enough to guide markets, flexible enough to accommodate innovation, and firm enough to protect investors. pic.twitter.com/mVnkdetojZ
— Paul Atkins (@SECPaulSAtkins) March 19, 2026
A new taxonomy puts crypto assets into five buckets
At the center of the guidance is a five-part classification system meant to reduce the ambiguity that has shaped enforcement and product design for years. The agencies are now using a structured taxonomy to sort crypto assets by function, economic reality and legal treatment.
The first category is Digital Commodities, a label applied to assets linked to the programmatic operation of functioning crypto networks and driven more by supply and demand than by ongoing managerial efforts. Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Cardano and XRP were cited as examples of assets the SEC views through this lens, in alignment with futures markets already overseen in part by the CFTC.
The second and third categories cover Digital Collectibles and Digital Tools. The guidance says NFTs and many meme coins generally fall outside securities law unless their structure introduces investment-contract features, while utility-style tokens used for memberships, credentials or ticketing are typically not securities when their primary use is functional rather than speculative.
The fourth and fifth categories are Payment Stablecoins and Digital Securities. Payment stablecoins are excluded from the securities definition under the GENIUS Act framework, while tokenized versions of traditional securities remain firmly within the SEC’s jurisdiction.
The SEC kept Howey, but narrowed the focus
Even with the new categories, the SEC did not abandon the Howey test. The guidance makes clear that Howey remains the controlling framework for determining when a crypto asset becomes an investment contract.
What changed is the agency’s emphasis. The SEC placed sharper weight on common enterprise, issuer representations and the extent to which buyers are relying on the essential managerial efforts of others to generate profit. Under that reading, an asset can move out of securities treatment once those managerial efforts are completed or permanently cease.
Chairman Paul Atkins described the interpretation as only an initial step and tied it to a broader exemptive agenda. The SEC is now signaling that tailored safe harbors and limited registration pathways may follow for startups, small fundraising rounds and projects whose managerial phase has effectively ended.
Compliance teams now have a more usable framework
Custody models, disclosures, record-retention practices and trading controls will now need to reflect the new categories rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all crypto risk approach.
The MOU with the CFTC adds another layer to that adjustment. Interagency coordination may reduce some jurisdictional confusion, but it also means firms will need compliance programs that are built to handle overlapping oversight rather than assume one regulator will dominate every product.
The guidance also sits inside a larger legislative arc. The SEC presented its interpretation as part of a broader effort to prepare the market for the next phase of federal crypto rulemaking, including follow-through from the House-passed CLARITY Act and the stablecoin regime tied to the GENIUS Act.
For now, the immediate task is execution. The market has clearer labels than before, but the real impact will depend on how quickly firms translate that taxonomy into operational rules for custody, fundraising, trading and investor disclosure.
