Under the leadership of new Chairman Paul Atkins, the US SEC has officially provided regulatory approval for liquid staking activities, clearly stating that some staking activities do not fall under securities issuance. This policy shift marks the end of the high-pressure enforcement model of former chairman Gary Gensler's era, providing clear legal space for innovation for the first time. With this news, the entire market quickly became active.
In recent years, the US cryptocurrency industry has suffered from regulatory ambiguity, and liquid staking has been particularly sensitive due to the involvement of large sums of money. The staking locked value on the Ethereum network has reached $51 billion, accounting for about 76% of the global liquid staking market. Regulatory uncertainty had once hindered institutional investors from entering, but now the clarity in regulation has released positive signals, prompting several well-known institutions such as VanEck and Bitwise to quickly apply for liquid staking ETF products for Ethereum and Solana, which are expected to be formally approved soon.
Paul Atkins emphasized that this statement clarifies the SEC's jurisdictional boundaries for other crypto asset innovation activities, meaning that the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem is entering a more relaxed developmental environment. The core advantage of liquid staking lies in its higher asset liquidity and capital efficiency compared to traditional staking models, which can attract more traditional financial institutions to participate. This positive news can effectively alleviate banks, insurance companies, and pension funds' previous concerns about regulatory risks.
Although the current statement is merely a policy declaration at the SEC employee level and does not constitute a legally binding formal regulation, considering the political and market environment, the formation of formal rules in the future is almost certain. This also means that the US market may once again become the focal point of global crypto innovation, attracting a significant capital influx.
Looking ahead, as blockchain networks like Ethereum continue to upgrade and regulatory clarity increases, the scale of the liquid staking market is expected to expand significantly. At the same time, this regulatory shift also provides an important foundation for the healthy development of the overall crypto market. Investors will directly benefit from regulatory clarity, and the industry will usher in a new wave of more vibrant technological innovation.
