SEC unveils its Spring 2025 regulatory agenda, crypto takes top priority

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unveiled its Spring 2025 regulatory agenda. At the top of its list is crypto clarity, supporting innovation, capital formation, market efficiency, and investor protection.

According to SEC Chair Paul S. Atkins, “The agenda covers potential rule proposals related to the offer and sale of crypto assets to help clarify the regulatory framework for crypto assets and provide greater certainty to the market.”

Although Spring 2025 has passed in North America, the SEC has borrowed South America’s Spring, which starts this September, to symbolize a new dawn for the crypto industry. Atkins said that the items on the agenda represent the Commission’s renewed focus. Atkins believes that the regulatory agenda dubbed “Spring 2025” is “a new day at the SEC.”

The SEC is set to remove some regulations from Gary’s administration 

The agenda will cover proposed deregulatory rules that would make it easier for businesses to get capital and for investors to go to private firms. This will be facilitated by reducing compliance burdens and facilitating capital formation.

The agenda discusses amending existing rules to improve and modernize them, as well as address disclosure burdens. According to Atkins, the new dawn reflects the withdrawal of a host of items from the last administration that do not align with the goal that regulation should be smart, effective, and appropriately tailored within the confines of statutory authority.

Atkins said, “A key priority of my Chairmanship is clear rules of the road for the issuance, custody, and trading of crypto assets while continuing to discourage bad actors from violating the law.”

The agenda also suggests that the Commission ask the public for their thoughts on revisiting the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), especially after a recent ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Market participants and Congress have rightly pushed back on CAT’s seemingly endless cost increases and the risks of storing so much sensitive data together.

The crypto market is in the red despite good news

Although the SEC has called the month of September Spring, its bad reputation, especially in the crypto market, is still the same. The crypto market is at a standstill with most coins in the red. The market has recorded a 1.58% decline in market cap to 3.8 trillion. This is the opposite of what is expected after the joint statement from the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

According to a press release seen by Cryptopolitan, the SEC and CFTC  issued a rare joint statement saying that registered exchanges can now list “certain spot crypto assets.” This brought to a close the uncertainty. This allows mainstream US exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to offer spot trading of crypto assets like Bitcoin.

This was a major breakthrough for the industry because for years, the SEC and CFTC were seen as competitors with overlapping jurisdiction in the digital asset space, separately sending mixed signals. 

Now the SEC and CFTC’s two broader initiatives came together, that is, the SEC’s “Project Crypto” and the CFTC’s “Crypto Sprint”. Both programs aim to modernize US rules while keeping up with fast-moving global markets.

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