The United States just took a huge step toward rewriting how crypto works.
For most of crypto’s history, companies in the U.S. have been forced to play a guessing game. First, you build a token. Then you launch a platform. After that, you wait to see which regulator shows up.
Because depending on how it’s classified, your product could fall under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Sometimes both.
That’s not a small problem. It’s shaped the entire industry.
Exchanges have been forced to split operations across multiple entities. Tokens have been designed to avoid certain labels. Some crypto companies even chose to leave the U.S. rather than deal with a bureaucratic nightmare.
But last week, Washington took a step toward ending ambiguity.
Because the SEC and CFTC signed a formal agreement to coordinate how they regulate digital assets.
And it could finally give crypto something it’s never really had in the U.S.
A clear set of rules to build around.
A Truce With Teeth
The memorandum between the SEC and CFTC creates a framework for joint rulemaking, shared examinations and coordinated enforcement specifically for crypto.
It also includes something the industry has been asking for years.
Clear definitions.
The agreement calls for both agencies to work together to decide whether a token is a security, a commodity or a hybrid. That’s been one of the biggest unresolved questions in crypto since its inception.
Right now, companies often don’t get that answer until an enforcement action shows up.
But this flips the order. First come the rules, then enforcement follows.
That one change alone should change how new crypto products get designed. Instead of guessing how a token might be treated later, companies can now structure it to fit a known category from the start.
At the same time, this new agreement focuses on “dually registered” venues that operate across both securities and commodities markets.
Today, those platforms often maintain separate systems, separate compliance teams and separate legal structures just to satisfy two regulators.
It’s why many exchanges look unified on the surface but are actually split underneath. There’s one platform on the front end, but multiple entities behind it.
This framework is designed to pull all those pieces back together.
In practice, it could allow a single platform to offer crypto trading, tokenized securities and derivatives under one coordinated structure.
That’s something Elon Musk should be very excited about.
But simplicity on the front end will come with more oversight on the back end.
The SEC and CFTC plan to share trading data and monitoring tools. This would let them see how crypto moves across different markets, from basic token trades to more complex financial products like derivatives.
Today, those markets often operate in silos.
A token might trade on one platform while a derivative linked to it trades somewhere else. Oversight doesn’t always connect the two.
But this agreement is built to close those gaps. This means fewer blind spots and fewer places for risk or manipulation to hide.
Of course, none of this is entirely new. The SEC and CFTC have been coordinating for decades.
In 1981, the Shad–Johnson Accord divided oversight of stock index products.
After the financial crisis, Dodd-Frank required them to jointly define swaps, security-based swaps and other hybrid instruments.
And in 2018, both agencies committed to coordinating enforcement around digital assets.
So these entities have aligned before.
What’s new is how much ground this new agreement covers.
It brings rulemaking, supervision and enforcement together under one system, with digital assets at the center.
For crypto companies, it reduces the ability to operate in regulatory gray areas across products or jurisdictions.
And that’s what this unified framework is all about.
Predictability.
For years, crypto firms have built products without knowing which rules would ultimately apply. But a coordinated framework solves this problem.
It allows companies to design products around known definitions instead of guessing. And it also reduces the friction of operating across multiple regulatory regimes.
That doesn’t mean less oversight. It just means fewer surprises.
At the same time, it raises the bar.
A unified SEC–CFTC approach means fewer conflicting standards, but also fewer gaps between them. That will make oversight more consistent across markets.
Congress is already working on legislation like the CLARITY Act and the GENIUS Act, which aim to formally divide crypto oversight between the two agencies.
This agreement could become the operating system behind it.
Here’s My Take
For years, crypto in the U.S. has operated in a gray area.
Companies built first, then waited to see how regulators would respond.
This new agreement between the SEC and CFTC is an attempt to change that. And we’re already starting to see what that coordination looks like in practice.
Just days after the agreement, regulators began outlining how existing securities laws apply to crypto assets, with both agencies moving in the same direction.
If this continues to play out as I predict, the next phase of crypto in the U.S. will look very different from the last.
You see, large institutions don’t operate well in gray areas. They need defined rules, clear oversight and consistent enforcement.
This agreement is a huge step in that direction.
Clear rules and guidelines will allow the market to evolve. It’ll mean more standardized products, more integrated platforms and fewer gaps between crypto and traditional finance.
It won’t make the industry simpler. But it will make it more structured.
And that’s usually what happens right before a market gets a lot bigger.
Regards,
Ian King
Chief Strategist, Banyan Hill Publishing
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