Spring sprint towards the clarity of Crypto Assets Hester Peirce stated: NFTs will be the next regulatory direction

The crypto circle (120btc.CoM): The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seems to be moving towards developing regulatory policies in collaboration with the Crypto Assets industry. SEC commissioner and head of the crypto working group Hester Peirce recently (21) stated at the agency's first roundtable forum focused on Crypto Assets that SEC staff are ready to work with the industry to jointly develop a regulatory framework for digital asset trading.

Peirce stated at the event titled "Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity" ( that the SEC is ready to "seriously seek a workable framework." She said, "I think we are ready for the upcoming spring."

The task proposed by Peirce is: "Can we transform the characteristics of securities into a simple classification system that covers the many different types of Crypto Assets that exist today and those that may exist in the future?"

SEC: Other Crypto Assets May Still Be Defined as Securities

Although the recent policy statement released by the SEC indicated that certain areas of the encryption currency ), such as Meme coins and mining (, are not subject to securities laws, acting chairman Mark Uyeda stated to reporters that other crypto assets still have a "clear possibility" of being defined as securities.

Uyeda said in response to CoinDesk's question, "We are progressing on multiple tracks." He pointed out that every statement released so far "is ultimately a staff statement" and does not have legal effect, but the roundtable forum represents the entire committee ), which currently has three members ( considering "what a potential committee interpretation might look like."

In his opening speech at the event, Uyeda stated that the SEC should have been more willing to publicly provide such explanations in recent years. He said, "When judicial opinions create uncertainty for our participants, the Commission and its staff intervene to provide guidance. This approach of using regular rulemaking to interpret the Commission's processes or releases, rather than enforcement actions, should be considered for classifying Crypto Assets under federal securities law."

Industry Perspective: The Crypto Market is Moving Towards a 'Pseudo-IPO' Model

At the roundtable forum, a dozen securities lawyers from the Crypto Assets field shared their views on the specific issues they encountered while providing consulting for companies.

Sarah Brennan, General Counsel at Delphi Ventures, stated: "The shadow of securities law has led early projects in the market to take a development path very similar to that of an initial public offering ) IPO (, as they remain privatized for a longer period." She further explained: "These assets are intended for broad, early distribution under traditional models, but most participants in the market are circumventing the applicability of securities laws, so it ultimately resembles traditional markets, where people manage to enter exchanges without widespread dissemination, price support, or actual fully launched technology."

Former SEC lawyer John Reed Stark stated: "Whether you are talking about yield farming, ostrich farms, or orange orchards, the focus of securities regulation is to bring all of this into a very broad, principle-based regulatory framework." He is concerned that even by 2025, a significant portion of the market will still lack practicality.

"If all of this disappeared tomorrow and you weren't speculating in it, you wouldn't care at all," he said.

Lawmakers Question: How to Specifically Define Meme Coins?

Before the roundtable forum, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Jake Auchincloss sent a letter to Uyeda inquiring about the SEC's staff statement on Meme coins and its formulation process.

The letter inquires whether anyone from the SEC communicated with the White House regarding the statement, whether the White House's Crypto Assets working group instructed the SEC to take any action, and why the staff statement was not included in the formal rulemaking.

Warren and Auchincloss also asked the SEC to explain how it will specifically define Meme coins to distinguish them from "general crypto assets," how it will differentiate actual Meme coins from those that do not comply with the staff's statement, and which Meme coins the SEC analyzed when drafting its staff statement.

Crypto Mom Hints That NFTs Will Be the Next Regulatory Focus

Peirce told reporters during a break in the event that the next area for the agency to release a cryptocurrency policy statement, following Meme coins and mining, could be non-fungible tokens )NFT(. She stated that NFTs might benefit from the agency's clarification of its regulations.

"I think we will see that we can do this with NFTs as well," she told reporters, "we could have done this a long time ago."

When CoinDesk asked whether the non-binding, unofficial staff statement was a way for the agency to signal policy, she stated that it was a response to the agency's reluctance to discuss any related issues in recent years.

"Establishing rules can certainly be done through announcements and consultation procedures, but if it's simply expressing 'this is how we view the law', there's no need to do so."