SIFMA Urges SEC to Embrace Open Crypto Rules, Reject Stock Exemptions

SIFMA urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to establish clear, progressive regulations for digital assets through public notice and comment procedures. The trade association, representing broker-dealers, banks and asset managers, sent a letter on July 3, 2025, to the SEC's Washington headquarters, warning that granting tokenized equity exemptions without full rulemaking would undermine investor protections.

Core Regulatory Principles

In its response to the SEC's May Crypto RFI, SIFMA outlined four core principles: extending existing investor protections to digital assets, applying a technology-neutral regulatory approach, clarifying custody rules for digital assets, including private-key control, and leveraging established securities frameworks rather than creating parallel regimes.

The group warned that tokenized equity exemptions would allow crypto firms to offer securities “outside of the regulatory structure established by the federal securities laws and from which many critical investor protections flow.”

These policy questions are simply too important to be addressed purely through immediate no-action or exemptive requests, and such requests should be rejected,

SIFMA stated in its letter to the SEC's Crypto Task Force.

Comprehensive Rulemaking Approach

The SEC formed its Crypto Task Force in January 2025 to chart a regulatory path for digital assets, moving beyond a strictly enforcement-driven approach under prior leadership. SIFMA and its Asset Management Group previously submitted comprehensive comments in May, advocating for guidance on blockchain-based transfer agents.

The association emphasized that existing rules should apply to on-chain securities recordkeeping. SIFMA's intervention underscores the push from traditional finance for inclusive, well-deliberated regulations rather than piecemeal regulatory carve-outs as the industry awaits official rule proposals.

The letter was addressed to the task force established under Acting Chair Mark Uyeda. SIFMA argues that ad hoc relief would circumvent the notice and comment rulemaking process that underpins federal securities laws, potentially diluting critical investor safeguards.