Written by: kkk
On July 31, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins announced a far-reaching new policy—'Project Crypto'. This chain reform plan led by the SEC has a clear goal: to completely rewrite the regulatory logic of the U.S. in the era of crypto assets, allowing the financial market to 'move on-chain' and realize the grand vision outlined by the Trump administration—making the U.S. the 'world's crypto capital'.
The past model of 'enforcement instead of regulation' not only drove cryptocurrency innovators to Singapore and Dubai but also missed the opportunity for the U.S. to lead the next generation of financial infrastructure. The launch of 'Project Crypto', unlike the regulatory suppression of the past few years, undoubtedly sends a strong signal to the entire industry: the era of on-chain in the U.S. starts now.
With regulatory easing, DeFi protocols like Uniswap and Aave are entering a golden window.
The attitudes of past SEC chairpersons towards crypto assets and their derivatives—especially DeFi (Decentralized Finance)—often determine the temperature and activity level of the U.S. market. During Gary Gensler's tenure, the SEC's regulatory strategy was centered on 'prioritizing the definition of securities' and 'enforcement as the basis', emphasizing the comprehensive inclusion of token trading within the traditional securities framework. During his term, more than 125 enforcement actions related to crypto were promoted, involving numerous DeFi projects, including subpoenas against Uniswap and lawsuits against Coinbase, almost raising the compliance threshold for on-chain products to historic highs.
After Paul Atkins took office as the new chairman in April 2025, the SEC's regulatory style underwent a fundamental shift. He quickly initiated a roundtable discussion titled 'DeFi and the American Spirit' to ease regulations on DeFi.
In Project Crypto, Atkins clearly stated that the original intention of U.S. federal securities laws is to protect investors and market fairness, not to stifle technology architectures that do not require intermediaries. He believes that decentralized financial systems like automated market makers (AMMs) can essentially realize non-intermediated financial market activities and should be granted legitimate status at the institutional level. Developers who 'simply write code' should be provided with clear protection and exemptions; while intermediaries wishing to offer services based on these protocols should be given clear and executable compliance pathways.
The shift in this policy thinking undoubtedly releases positive signals for the entire DeFi ecosystem. Particularly for protocols like Lido, Uniswap, and Aave, which have already formed on-chain network effects and have highly autonomous designs, they will gain institutional recognition and developmental space under the logic of decentralizing regulation. Protocol tokens that have long suffered from the 'shadow of securities' are also expected to reshape their valuation logic in the context of relaxed policies and the return of market participants, re-emerging as 'mainstream assets' in the eyes of investors.
Building the next generation of financial entry: Super-App will reshape the competitive landscape of trading platforms.
In his speech, Paul Atkins proposed the concept of 'Super-App', which is highly meaningful and transformative. Atkins believes that current securities intermediaries face complex compliance structures and redundant licensing barriers when providing traditional securities, crypto assets, and on-chain services, directly hindering product innovation and user experience upgrades. He suggested that future trading platforms should be able to integrate various services—including non-securities crypto assets (like $DOGE), securities crypto assets (like tokenized stocks), traditional securities (like U.S. stocks), and services like staking and lending—under one license. This is not only a compliance innovation that simplifies the process but also the core competitiveness of future trading platform companies.
The regulatory body will promote the real implementation of this Super-App architecture. Atkins has clearly instructed the SEC to draft a regulatory framework allowing crypto assets, regardless of whether they constitute securities, to coexist and trade on SEC-registered platforms. At the same time, the SEC is also evaluating how to leverage existing authority to relax certain assets' listing conditions on non-registered exchanges (like platforms with only state licenses). Even derivatives platforms regulated by the CFTC may be expected to incorporate certain leverage functions to release greater trading liquidity. The entire direction of regulatory reform is to break the binary boundary of securities/non-securities, allowing platforms to flexibly allocate assets based on product essence and user demand, rather than being bound by compliance structures.
The most direct beneficiaries of this transformation are undoubtedly Coinbase and Robinhood. These two companies have already established diversified trading structures, covering both mainstream crypto assets and operating traditional securities trading, as well as providing lending and wallet services. Encouraged by Project Crypto, they are expected to become the first platforms to reap policy dividends—achieving one-stop services and connecting on-chain products with traditional user groups. Notably, Robinhood has completed the acquisition of Bitstamp this year and officially launched tokenized equity trading, bringing U.S. stocks like Apple, NVIDIA, and Tesla online in ERC-20 format. This move is precisely a prelude to the Super-App model: providing traditional stock trading experiences through on-chain protocols without disrupting users' familiar usage patterns.
On the Coinbase side, it is advancing the developer ecosystem through the Base chain, attempting to integrate exchanges, wallets, social interactions, and application layer services. If it can integrate traditional securities and on-chain assets at the compliance level in the future, Coinbase is highly likely to evolve into a 'on-chain version of Charles Schwab' or a 'next-generation Morgan Stanley'—not just an asset entry point, but a complete financial tool distribution and operation platform.
It is foreseeable that once the Super-App architecture is fully released, it will become the core battlefield of competition among trading platforms. Whoever can first achieve compliant 'multi-asset aggregated trading' will gain a leading position in the next round of financial infrastructure upgrades. The regulatory attitude is becoming increasingly clear, and platforms are already accelerating their entry. For users, this means a smoother trading experience, a richer selection of products, and a financial world that is closer to the future.
ERC-3643: A Compliance Bridge from Technical Protocols to Policy Templates in the RWA Track
Regarding RWA, Paul Atkins clearly stated in his speech that he would promote the tokenization of traditional assets and specifically mentioned ERC-3643 as a token standard worthy of reference in the regulatory framework. This was the only token standard publicly mentioned during the entire speech, indicating that ERC-3643 has jumped from a technical protocol to a policy-level reference model, its importance is self-evident.
Paul emphasized that when designing an innovative exemption framework, the SEC will prioritize token systems that have 'built-in compliance capabilities', and the smart contracts of ERC-3643 integrate mechanisms such as permission control, identity verification, and transaction restrictions, directly meeting current securities regulations' requirements for KYC, AML, and accredited investors.
The biggest feature of ERC-3643 lies in its design philosophy of 'compliance is code'. It integrates a decentralized identity framework called ONCHAINID, requiring all token holders to undergo identity verification and meet preset rules before they can complete holding or transfer operations. Regardless of which public chain the token is deployed on, only users who meet KYC or accredited investor standards can truly own these assets. The smart contract layer completes compliance determination without relying on centralized reviews, manual records, or off-chain protocols.
The biggest difference from ERC-20 is the introduction of the dimension of 'permissions'. ERC-20 was born in a completely open, permissionless on-chain native context, where any wallet address can freely receive and transfer, making it a completely 'fungible tool'. In contrast, ERC-3643 targets high-value, highly regulated asset categories like securities, funds, and bonds, emphasizing 'who can hold' and 'whether it is compliant', thus it is a 'permissioned token standard'. In other words, ERC-20 is the free currency of the crypto world, while ERC-3643 is a compliant container for on-chain finance.
Currently, ERC-3643 has been adopted by multiple countries and financial institutions worldwide. The European digital securities platform Tokeny has recently been expanding the ERC-3643 standard to private market securitization. In June of this year, Tokeny announced a partnership with the digital securities platform Kerdo to build a blockchain-based private investment infrastructure covering asset types such as real estate, private equity, hedge funds, and private debt through ERC-3643.
From real estate to art collections, from private equity to supply chain notes, ERC-3643 provides the underlying support for the fragmentation, digitization, and global circulation of various assets. It is currently the only public chain token standard that combines programmability, on-chain identity verification, cross-border legal compatibility, and the ability to interface with existing financial structures.
As Paul Atkins mentioned in his speech, the future securities market must not only 'operate on-chain' but also 'comply on-chain'. In this new era, ERC-3643 may become the key bridge connecting the SEC with Ethereum, and linking TradFi with DeFi.
Entrepreneurs are returning to the U.S., and the primary market will take off again on-chain.
For a long time, the 'Howey Test' has been the main basis for the SEC to determine whether a certain asset constitutes a security. Specifically, it includes four elements: whether there is an investment of money, whether there is investment in a common enterprise, whether there is reliance on the efforts of others to generate profits, and whether there is an expectation of profits. If a project meets all four criteria, it will be classified as a security, thus being subject to a series of securities law frameworks such as pre-issue prospectus, information disclosure, and regulatory filing.
Due to the ambiguity of the testing standards and inconsistent enforcement, many projects over the past few years have chosen to sacrifice the U.S. market to avoid potential regulatory risks, even deliberately 'screening out' U.S. users and not opening airdrops and incentives.
In the latest released Project Crypto policy, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins explicitly states: a reclassification standard for crypto assets will be established to provide clear disclosure norms, exemption conditions, and safe harbor mechanisms for common on-chain economic activities such as airdrops, ICOs, and staking. The SEC will no longer default to 'token issuance = security', but will reasonably categorize them into different classes such as digital commodities (e.g., Bitcoin), digital collectibles (e.g., NFTs), stablecoins, or security tokens based on their economic attributes, and provide appropriate legal pathways.
This represents a critical turning point: project teams will no longer need to 'pretend not to issue tokens', nor need to circumvent structures like foundations or DAOs to conceal incentive mechanisms, and no longer have to register projects in the Cayman Islands. Instead, teams that genuinely focus on code, with technology as their core driving force, will gain institutional recognition.
As emerging tracks like AI, DePIN, and SocialFi rapidly rise, and the market demand for early-stage financing surges, this regulatory framework based on substantive classification and encouragement of innovation is expected to trigger a wave of project relocations back to the U.S. The U.S. is no longer a market that crypto entrepreneurs avoid; it may once again become their first choice for token issuance and fundraising.
Summary
'Project Crypto' is not a single piece of legislation, but a complete set of systematic reforms. It envisions a future where decentralized software, token economies, and compliance in capital markets converge. Paul Atkins's stance is also very clear: 'Regulation should no longer stifle innovation, but pave the way for it.'
For the market, this is also a clear signal of policy shift. From DeFi to RWA, from Super App to token issuance and fundraising, who can take off in this round of policy dividends depends on who can respond first to this U.S.-led 'on-chain capital market revolution'.