SEC Crypto Roundtable Explained: Key Signals of a U.S. Regulatory Shift

In January 2025, the SEC established the Crypto Task Force, led by reformist commissioner Hester Peirce, aimed at “defining clear regulatory boundaries and establishing a reasonable disclosure framework” for encryption assets. This action directly addresses the long-standing pain points of the industry: for the past decade, the SEC has primarily relied on enforcement actions rather than rule-making, leading the market to “struggle with legal uncertainty and fragmentation.”

Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda sharply criticized the SEC’s past strategies—“ostrich policy” and “shoot first, ask questions later enforcement”—during the first roundtable meeting on March 21, and announced the end of the “improvised enforcement” model, moving towards formal rule-making, including exemption mechanisms and safe harbor provisions. This shift was described by Forbes as a “key signal of moving from enforcement to communication.”

Series Roundtable Discussions: Focusing on Four Core Issues

The SEC held five intensive roundtable meetings from March to June, covering the industry’s most pressing regulatory challenges:

1. Compliance Path for Trading Platforms (April 11): Discussing whether decentralized trading platforms can comply without changing their architecture, directly addressing DeFi pain points;
2. New custody regulations implemented (April 25): After the controversial document SAB 121 was revoked, standards for self-custody and qualified custodians were clarified.
3. Tokenization Practices and Challenges (May 12): Debate on the technical feasibility and regulatory adaptability of securities on the blockchain;
4. DeFi and the Balance of Innovation (June 9): Exploring how decentralized finance is compatible with the “American spirit”.

Each meeting is open to the public for live broadcast and invites industry representatives to participate in discussions, reflecting the SEC’s acceptance of diverse voices.

Tokenization: The Controversial Focus of the Roundtable Discussion

The tokenization special session in May sparked intense debate. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins likened the on-chain securities to the “transformation of the music industry from vinyl to the digital age,” arguing that it could unleash potential for automatic dividends and enhanced liquidity. However, Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw questioned its practical feasibility, pointing out issues such as the insufficient scalability of public permissionless blockchains and the drawbacks of instant settlement— for instance, T+0 settlement could undermine the net settlement mechanism (which currently eliminates 98% of trading volume) and weaken the payment flexibility for retail investors.

The deeper contradiction lies in the regulatory logic: Should the SEC actively promote specific technologies? Crenshaw warns that focusing on blockchain while ignoring other distributed ledger technologies is akin to “the government picking winners.”

The Global Regulatory Landscape Restructuring Pressures the U.S. to Act

The SEC’s transformation is partly driven by global competitive pressures:

• The EU MiCA and Hong Kong VASP systems have established a comprehensive framework, attracting capital and talent away from the United States.
• Canada approves the world’s first staking-based Solana ETF, leading in spot product innovation;
• Emerging markets such as Panama are driving government agencies to accept encryption payments and explore sovereign-level use cases.

At the same time, the case of El Salvador’s “Bitcoin Law” facing a chill (with only 11% of registered businesses operating) also warns that policies need to align with market realities. Peirce therefore strongly advocates for a “regulatory sandbox” that allows exchanges to experiment with tokenized securities in a controlled environment, balancing innovation and risk.

Future Outlook: Rules Implementation and Global Coordination

The SEC’s series of roundtable discussions, while not directly producing rules, lays a crucial foundation for policy-making:

1. Issuance side: Revamping the S-1 form to exempt non-typical encryption asset disclosure irrelevant clauses (such as executive compensation);
2. Trading side: Revising ATS rules to support “hedging transactions” between securities and non-securities;
3. Custody side: Restructuring the “special purpose broker-dealer” framework to break the deadlock of only two institutions being approved.

These measures echo the Trump administration’s vision of making the United States the global encryption capital, but success depends on whether the SEC can transform the open dialogue of the roundtable into clear, actionable rules, avoiding falling back into the “enforcement-first” trap.

Policymakers and industry builders sit around a table, with the lights focused on the federal securities law hanging at SEC headquarters. When the Bitcoin white paper was born seventeen years ago, this law had already existed for half a century; today’s roundtable discussion is quietly reshaping the way the two sides converse.

The SEC’s series of roundtable discussions marks a key turning point in the U.S. encryption regulation from confrontation to constructive dialogue. As the core issues shift from theoretical debates to rule-making, 2025 may become the starting point for the U.S. to reclaim leadership in encryption regulation—provided that these discussions can transcend the corridors of Washington and translate into rules that the market truly needs.