SEC推迟加密与代币化规则，白宫将开加密会议

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This is your weekly Washington policy pulse on the [music] Balance of Power podcast. I'm Joe Mathieu. Every Monday, Bloomberg Intelligence [music] senior policy analyst and friend of the show, Nathan Dean, shares his weekly call on upcoming catalysts in the nation's capital. Listen for the most recent and relevant policy research from our team [music] at Bloomberg Intelligence. Now, with today's installment, here's Nathan Dean.

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Nathan Dean. I'm a senior policy analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence here in the Washington, D.C. bureau. Want to say thank you very much for joining and thank you to those of you who are listening via the Balance of Power podcast. We always appreciate your support. Today is August 17th, 10:03 a.m. Eastern. We have a couple of days until the IndyCar race comes to Washington. If you are a Washington resident, just a heads-up, the street closures are going to really start in earnest later today.

Uh I was driving in, noticed a huge National Guard truck parked right in front of the African American Museum on Constitution. Just as a heads-up. Keep that in mind. Maybe worthwhile taking the metro or I shouldn't be saying this, but or work from home. So, anyway, uh just keep in mind that the street closures are going to be going on. And then they're actually going to be a little bit more next week as they break down the IndyCar race just because they have to do things like, you know, weld all the manhole covers.

If anybody saw the F1 race in Las Vegas where it popped up underneath the Ferrari, similar story. But it should be fun race. I'm looking forward to seeing it going by the capital at 180 miles per hour. So, let's talk about what's going on. I want to look a little bit more on the regulatory side this week. Um but let's start with cryptocurrency. So, uh on Friday last week, the SEC was supposed to have its rulemakings out uh via a open meeting.

They didn't. There was a cancellation. Uh so, we put out a small note this week this morning just talking about that cancellation and what the SEC could do. And, you know, again, this wasn't a cancellation where the rules are probably not coming. Uh maybe this was more of a cancellation of just look, logistically, the SEC staffers hadn't finished one of the rules. Uh what we had heard is that there were actually potentially two rules, one related to crypto, one related to tokenization, and there had been some chatter that the tokenization proposal may not have been ready yet.

Again, I'm just speculating here. The SEC could be listening to this and saying, "No, you're completely wrong, Nathan." But, anyway, uh we'll just go ahead and tell you what we think the SEC is going to do. And if these rules do come out, the keep in mind, the thing here is is that you have to go back to interpretive guidance the SEC put out in March. Uh in that, they constituted what is considered a security, what is not considered a security.

Uh fun fact, the SEC reporter is just walking by and smiling at me, so I think uh you know, we we may Anyway, just sorry, that's why I just disrupted there. But, anyway, uh what the SEC uh could do is go back to the March interpretive guidance and actually say, "Look, this is what a security is, this is not what a security is." And for those tokens that are considered securities, in this case, remember, the SEC is going to most likely take the approach that most of these projects are not securities.

I mean, look, there are going to be projects out there that are considered securities. Here's what the registration requirements taking place, here's what the tailored disclosures look like, and you know, here's what you essentially have to do to get regulatory clarity. Now, keep in mind, and this is where what's going to sort of bleed into the White House crypto meeting that's later this week, is that whatever the SEC and the CFTC does can be unwound by a future Democratic chair if he or she wishes.

And so, you will hear the SEC and the CFTC make statements saying, "Look, clarity is coming, clarity is here." But, it's only clarity through January 20th, 2029 if the Democrats take presidency and decide that they want to have a different direction here. So, keep that in mind. Now, the these rule makings uh fairly benign, I think. There could be some innovation safe harbor here. The more interesting one, I think, is this tokenization uh rulemaking because this is where, you know, traditional finance is really headed in terms of its infrastructure, in terms of 24/7 trading, in terms of digitized tokens related to securities, and so forth.

Uh our market structure team, which is led by led by uh Larry Tab our director of financial research, is doing a lot of work on this at the moment. So, if you want to get a little bit deeper into this idea of what tokenization trading looks like, let me know. I'll be happy to put you in touch with uh you know, that team because when that proposal comes out, they're going to be digging a lot of deeper insights in terms of the actual market structure and the technology and the infrastructure behind the idea of tokenization of trading.

You know, the first rulemaking is really just more of like, "Okay, here, if you have a crypto project, this is how I think you register or not have to register." Which is important, but you know, the tokenization pieces, that's what's going to bleed into traditional finance, I think, a little bit more. So, stay tuned on that. Now, when is the SEC going to have its next meeting? It's unclear. Uh you know, it could be fairly soon.

It could be later this month. Could be next month, etc. You know, there's two trains of thoughts. One is did the SEC want to get ahead of clarity? Look, the Clarity Act, I dropped my odds to 40%. I've actually got my first Bloomberg coffee. Remember, if you if you attend these calls, you know that I offer you your Bloomberg coffees. I have my first Bloomberg coffee with a client tomorrow uh just to say I'm sorry that I got one that one wrong.

But, you know, now that the SEC has sort of said, "Look, clarity the Senate has left, you know, there's still discussions, etc. But, let's go ahead and actually start preparing for world without the clarity." That's where the SEC rulemaking comes into play. Now, this White House crypto meeting. So, the White House has a meeting later this week with essentially the members of the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee. They have a meeting at the day after.

Uh so, think of Coinbase, ICE, Nasdaq, you know, CME Group, um Polymarket, Kalshi. I mean, there's a whole bunch of folks here who are going to be meeting at the White House. We don't really know exactly what the agenda of the White House is. I haven't seen it, nor do we know if President Trump specifically is going to be attending here. But, the way I view this White House meeting is, look, you're going [snorts] to see a commitment from the White House to say, "The Senate didn't do its job, clarity didn't pass.

We are here for you. We are going to give you the crypto clarity that you need." But, as a reminder, that's only good through January 20th, 2029. So, I think it's going to be more of the White House just saying, "Look, we got your back. We're going to help you any way we can. We support you, etc. We're going to give you clarity until January 20th, 2029." So, you know, I don't think I'm not expecting a ton to come out of that meeting, but we'll certainly pay attention to it.

And then you have the CFTC Innovation Advisory Meeting the next day. Now, these advisory committees, and this is formally, if you're in the CFTC space, this is the formally committee known as the TAC, the Technology Advisory Committee. Essentially, and I go back before Bloomberg Intelligence, I was actually a member of CME Group's public policy team, and I used to have to go to these meetings. And these meetings would