After years of vague and sometimes hostile regulatory attitudes, the cryptocurrency policy in the United States is undergoing a historic, top-down transformation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently launched a series of significant initiatives aimed at fundamentally reshaping the landscape of digital assets in the U.S. with unprecedented force and speed.
At the core of this transformation is a massive reform plan called 'Project Crypto'; complementing it is the national tour roundtable 'Crypto on the Road', which dives deep into the industry; on the technical side, a brand new 'AI Task Force' has also been established, aiming to disrupt traditional market regulation models with cutting-edge technology. This series of coordinated actions clearly indicates that the U.S. is shifting from 'regulatory suppression' to 'proactive guidance', intending to attract back innovation and capital that had flowed out due to regulatory uncertainty, and to establish its leadership position in the global on-chain financial competition.
Crypto Project
At the center of this reform storm is the 'Crypto Project', personally promoted by the new SEC leader Paul Atkins. In a speech at the America First Policy Institute, Atkins clearly stated that the plan aims to comprehensively promote the modernization of the securities regulatory system to adapt to the arrival of the blockchain and digital asset era.
Atkins made a statement during his speech that will be etched in crypto history: 'Most crypto assets are not securities.' This statement starkly contrasts with the enforcement strategy of his predecessor, who maintained that 'everything could potentially be a security,' sending an extremely positive signal to the entire industry.
The reform blueprint of 'Project Crypto' primarily revolves around the following five core principles:
Establishing Clear Asset Classification and Issuance Standards: The SEC will develop clear guidelines to help the market determine whether crypto assets constitute securities. At the same time, it will provide a 'safe harbor' and exemption framework for activities such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), airdrops, and token rewards, allowing compliant innovative projects to develop safely in the U.S. without having to go abroad.
Ensuring Self-Custody and Diverse Custody Options: Atkins emphasized, 'Self-custody is one of America's core values.' The SEC will reform outdated custody rules (such as the controversial SAB121), restoring the rights of businesses and investors to freely choose to self-custody their assets or use qualified intermediary institutions, correcting market distortions caused by previous policies.
Promoting Compliance of 'Super App' Platforms: The plan advocates for allowing regulated trading platforms to simultaneously offer traditional securities, crypto asset securities, non-security crypto assets, and diversified services such as staking and lending under a single license. This will greatly simplify the compliance costs for platforms and foster innovation in comprehensive financial services.
Creating Regulatory Space for DeFi and On-Chain Software: The SEC will revise outdated rules to clearly differentiate between centralized intermediaries and decentralized systems, protect 'pure code publishers' (i.e., developers), and allow financial protocols that do not rely on traditional intermediaries to exist and operate legally in the U.S. market.
Establishing an Innovation Exemption Mechanism: To encourage startups, the SEC plans to introduce a principle-based 'innovation exemption' mechanism. This will allow new projects to quickly enter the market for trial operations under the premise of complying with core regulatory principles, without being immediately constrained by incompatible traditional regulatory frameworks.
Crypto on the Road
To ensure that the grand blueprint of the 'Crypto Project' does not become an unrealistic 'castle in the air', the Crypto Task Force, led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, known as the 'crypto mom', has simultaneously launched a national tour roundtable plan called 'Crypto on the Road'.
The core objective of this plan is to bring regulatory dialogue from the political center of Washington to the tech innovation centers across the U.S., directly communicating with builders on the front lines of the industry. Its main communication targets are small startup teams that typically lack the resources and channels to engage with regulatory agencies—especially entrepreneurs and developers with fewer than 10 employees and less than 2 years of establishment.
According to the published itinerary, this tour will start on August 4 in Berkeley, California, and will successively visit cities such as Boston, Dallas, Chicago, New York, Irvine, Cleveland, Scottsdale, and Ann Arbor, spanning until December this year.
Pierce stated, 'The Crypto Task Force is keenly aware that any regulatory framework will have far-reaching implications, and we want to ensure our outreach efforts are as comprehensive as possible.' This initiative aims to draw insights from real-world experiences to ensure that future regulations can truly promote rather than stifle innovation while protecting investors.
AI Task Force
While formulating new rules and soliciting industry feedback, the SEC is also upgrading its regulatory toolbox. A brand new 'AI Task Force' has been established, tasked with utilizing AI technology to 'disrupt traditional market supervision models'.
The establishment of this task force marks the SEC's recognition that, faced with an increasingly complex and data-heavy on-chain financial world, traditional human regulatory models can no longer be sustained. AI will play a key role in the following areas:
Massive Data Analysis: AI can analyze vast amounts of transaction data, smart contract interaction records, and complex DeFi protocols on public chains in real time, something that is impossible for humans to achieve.
Pattern Recognition and Fraud Detection: Through machine learning, AI can more effectively identify illegal or high-risk behaviors such as wash trading, market manipulation, and smart contract exploitation.
Enhancing Regulatory Efficiency: AI can automate a large number of compliance review tasks, allowing regulators to focus more on handling complex and high-risk cases.
The establishment of the AI Task Force complements the goals of the 'Crypto Project'. A clearer, more detailed regulatory framework requires a smarter, more efficient enforcement tool to ensure that the new rules can be effectively implemented.
A New Era of Cryptocurrency Regulation in the U.S.
Overall, the U.S. SEC is initiating a carefully planned and multi-pronged comprehensive regulatory reform. 'Project Crypto' is the top-level strategic blueprint that defines 'what to do'; the national tour roundtable 'Crypto on the Road' is the communication bridge that addresses 'how to do it'; and the AI Task Force is the technical engine that ensures execution, providing the answer to 'what tools to use'.
This series of coordinated actions conveys a clear message: the U.S. is bidding farewell to the uncertain regulatory era of the past and is adopting a more mature, proactive, and pragmatic approach to embrace the irreversible trend of digital assets. This regulatory modernization movement led by the SEC will not only profoundly impact the landscape of the domestic crypto industry but will also have far-reaching effects on the global digital finance competitive landscape. A clearer and more competitive U.S. crypto market seems to be rising on the horizon.
