Amid volatility, a stable flow of SEC actions

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An SEC overhaul was one of the crypto industry’s major expectations upon lobbying for — and ultimately achieving — an administration change.

While the Trump-Zelensky meeting fallout, the president’s crypto reserve announcement and tariffs have commanded headlines in recent days, the US securities regulator continues to share industry-changing news.

The latest development? The SEC closed its investigation into Yuga Labs, which the company called “a huge win for NFTs” in a Tuesday tweet. It added succinctly: “NFTs are not securities.”

Let’s map out the many other SEC actions since Trump’s election victory on Nov. 6:

The set-up

Nov. 21: SEC Chair Gary Gensler says he will depart the agency on Jan. 20.
Dec. 4: Trump nominates Paul Atkins to lead the SEC. He’s not yet confirmed as chair, but that hasn’t held back the commission like some thought it might. 
Jan. 20: Gensler indeed steps down as chair. 
Jan. 21: Trump names Mark Uyeda acting chair. 
Jan. 21: The SEC reveals a new crypto task force (led by Hester Peirce) “dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.”

Guidance, suit dismissals, ended probes, oh my.

Jan. 23: SEC releases SAB 122, rescinding SAB 121. Industry watchers say the move could pave the way for banks and brokers to custody spot crypto.
Feb. 4: Peirce lays out the SEC’s crypto-focused priorities, noting it’ll take time to “disentangle all these strands.”
Feb. 13: A federal judge pauses the SEC’s civil lawsuit against Binance for 60 days. 
Feb. 20: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reveals the SEC’s decision to drop its litigation with the crypto exchange.

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Feb. 21: The SEC ends its investigation into NFT platform OpenSea, CEO Devin Finzer shares. 
Feb. 21: Robinhood also gets word from the SEC that the agency has closed its probe into the company. No intended enforcement action.
Feb. 21: Another Peirce statement urges public input to achieve crypto regulatory clarity on a number of questions. Some for the industry to ponder on security status, for example:

Feb. 24: The SEC concludes its probe into Gemini. Also no planned action.
Feb. 24: Another closed investigation with similar outcome. This time the one into Uniswap Labs. 
Feb. 27: Consensys and the SEC agree the securities enforcement case concerning MetaMask should be dismissed.
Feb. 27: The SEC notes its decision to dismiss the Coinbase suit is to “renew its regulatory approach to the crypto industry” rather than “any assessment of the merits of the claims alleged in the action.” 
Feb. 27: SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw says the SEC’s Coinbase dismissal “ignores 80 years of well-established law.” She adds: “Whatever the law may be tomorrow, market participants should not be able to avoid the law as it stands today.”
Feb. 27: A busy day, the SEC also addresses memecoins. It believes “transactions in the types of memecoins described in this statement do not involve the offer and sale of securities under the federal securities laws.”

Then this week, a few things preceded the aforementioned Yuga Labs news. The SEC agreed “in principle” and “with prejudice” to drop its lawsuit against Kraken.

Peirce then revealed members of the crypto task force. Chief of staff Richard Gabbert is a senior adviser to Uyeda and has served as counsel to Peirce since 2018.

Oh, and the SEC has all the while been acknowledging various crypto ETF proposals holding assets beyond BTC and ETH. A potential good sign for those, but no approvals yet.

Other than ETF decisions, we’ll be watching for any SEC pivot on the Ripple case. 

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