On the 17th, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published a staff interpretation of federal securities laws, classifying Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and most major cryptocurrencies as digital goods rather than securities under the Howey Test. The move comes after more than a decade of debate over crypto regulation and could lower the regulatory threshold for traditional financial institutions to enter the crypto markets.
Under the new framework, assets are categorized into five groups: digital goods, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities. Bitcoin and Ethereum are listed as digital goods, while meme coins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are categorized as digital collectibles.
The reclassification is expected to draw institutional money that previously avoided crypto investments due to regulatory ambiguity. Analysts caution that SEC oversight may remain for certain assets, while some expect regulatory authority to shift toward the CFTC for others. With congressional debates over crypto legislation ongoing, some warn that the window for passage remains narrow. City bank researcher Alex Saunders told Reuters that crypto-legislation talks have stalled, narrowing the window for passage, and he revised Bitcoin’s 12-month price target from $143,000 to $112,000.
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