#sec拟放宽投顾加密托管规则
760-page filing drops at once: US SEC wants investment advisers to hold clients' crypto assets themselves 🦖
⚖️ ⏰ 消息群里第一时间说
On Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled a new proposal for crypto custody. The core idea is to carve out a compliant path for registered investment advisers and regulated funds: under certain conditions, they could hold clients’ crypto assets themselves, without having to wait for a qualified custodian; it would also allow state-chartered trust companies to serve as crypto custodians. The rules would sit under the 1940 Investment Advisers Act and the Investment Company Act, with a正文 of 760 pages.
Why did this roadblock take years to resolve? Because the “qualified custodian” threshold was never clearly defined. Advisers are required to hand over client assets to an institution that meets strict custody standards, but regulators never provided an answer on which crypto firms qualify. The result: many institutions simply wouldn’t touch crypto—and some even had the project team hold the assets first.
As early as May 2025, the Digital Commerce Chamber raised the issue with the SEC: some advisers outright rejected token allocations.
But this “self-custody” isn’t something you can do casually with a private key. The conditions are stringent: you must first prove that for each asset, no qualified custodian can be found, and you must re-verify that every quarter. Once a qualified custodian becomes available, the assets must be transferred out as quickly as possible. You need to meet standards for private key management, network security, and segregation of client assets. And for every transfer, at least two authorized people must approve. Funds using this approach also have to have their board oversighted.
Chair Atkins put it bluntly: the market has grown from the “niche curiosity” of 2008 into a multi-trillion-dollar asset class, yet the rules haven’t kept up. She wants to replace “the gray uncertainty caused by custody rules designed for a bygone era.” Commissioner Peirce compared the wait to regulatory “rollercoaster rides,” saying advisers have been “clenching their teeth and refusing to let go”—and she is set to depart this Friday, leaving only two commissioners. Another commissioner, Ueda, acknowledged that custody by advisers inherently involves conflicts of interest, and fiduciary duties still remain.
⚠️ Translation: This is a piece the SEC has put together itself—after the CLARITY Act failed in the Senate by a 49-to-50 vote—by checking off its crypto agenda item by item. Earlier, there were innovative exemption for tokenized stocks and a Regulation Crypto Assets fundraising framework; now custody is added too. But note: it’s still only a proposal. After it’s published in the Federal Register, there will be 60 days for public comment, and then a vote.
🦕 My take: What’s truly valuable in this rule isn’t that funds will store coins themselves—it’s that, for the first time, it clearly spells out a “compliant path.” Institutions previously didn’t have the courage to do it, and what they often lacked wasn’t guts but process. Once the threshold is clear, it will unlock a tranche of capital that compliance departments would otherwise have blocked. But don’t expect a pump tomorrow—there are still several months between proposal and implementation.
Do you think the biggest winners this time are custody service providers, or those fund managers stuck outside the door? Chat in the comments 👇
Click the avatar to watch the live stream
Every day, I’ll help you follow key developments in crypto regulation—not just what happens in the news, but also the logic and opportunities behind it 👀🚀
760-page filing drops at once: US SEC wants investment advisers to hold clients' crypto assets themselves 🦖
⚖️ ⏰ 消息群里第一时间说
On Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled a new proposal for crypto custody. The core idea is to carve out a compliant path for registered investment advisers and regulated funds: under certain conditions, they could hold clients’ crypto assets themselves, without having to wait for a qualified custodian; it would also allow state-chartered trust companies to serve as crypto custodians. The rules would sit under the 1940 Investment Advisers Act and the Investment Company Act, with a正文 of 760 pages.
Why did this roadblock take years to resolve? Because the “qualified custodian” threshold was never clearly defined. Advisers are required to hand over client assets to an institution that meets strict custody standards, but regulators never provided an answer on which crypto firms qualify. The result: many institutions simply wouldn’t touch crypto—and some even had the project team hold the assets first.
As early as May 2025, the Digital Commerce Chamber raised the issue with the SEC: some advisers outright rejected token allocations.
But this “self-custody” isn’t something you can do casually with a private key. The conditions are stringent: you must first prove that for each asset, no qualified custodian can be found, and you must re-verify that every quarter. Once a qualified custodian becomes available, the assets must be transferred out as quickly as possible. You need to meet standards for private key management, network security, and segregation of client assets. And for every transfer, at least two authorized people must approve. Funds using this approach also have to have their board oversighted.
Chair Atkins put it bluntly: the market has grown from the “niche curiosity” of 2008 into a multi-trillion-dollar asset class, yet the rules haven’t kept up. She wants to replace “the gray uncertainty caused by custody rules designed for a bygone era.” Commissioner Peirce compared the wait to regulatory “rollercoaster rides,” saying advisers have been “clenching their teeth and refusing to let go”—and she is set to depart this Friday, leaving only two commissioners. Another commissioner, Ueda, acknowledged that custody by advisers inherently involves conflicts of interest, and fiduciary duties still remain.
⚠️ Translation: This is a piece the SEC has put together itself—after the CLARITY Act failed in the Senate by a 49-to-50 vote—by checking off its crypto agenda item by item. Earlier, there were innovative exemption for tokenized stocks and a Regulation Crypto Assets fundraising framework; now custody is added too. But note: it’s still only a proposal. After it’s published in the Federal Register, there will be 60 days for public comment, and then a vote.
🦕 My take: What’s truly valuable in this rule isn’t that funds will store coins themselves—it’s that, for the first time, it clearly spells out a “compliant path.” Institutions previously didn’t have the courage to do it, and what they often lacked wasn’t guts but process. Once the threshold is clear, it will unlock a tranche of capital that compliance departments would otherwise have blocked. But don’t expect a pump tomorrow—there are still several months between proposal and implementation.
Do you think the biggest winners this time are custody service providers, or those fund managers stuck outside the door? Chat in the comments 👇
Click the avatar to watch the live stream
Every day, I’ll help you follow key developments in crypto regulation—not just what happens in the news, but also the logic and opportunities behind it 👀🚀
