Author: BitpushNews Mary Liu
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently taken a series of actions: withdrawing investigations and enforcement actions against crypto giants such as Uniswap Labs, Robinhood Crypto, OpenSea, Coinbase, and Gemini, seeking a settlement with Justin Sun and the Tron Foundation, and issuing a stance on Memecoins, stating that they are not "securities"... This sends a strong signal of a softening regulatory approach.
The new SEC leadership, represented by Acting Chair Mark T. Uyeda and Hester Peirce, is intentionally ending the previously confrontational stance and seeking to establish a more constructive dialogue framework with the crypto industry.
Uyeda has even publicly acknowledged that the SEC's crypto regulation in the past few years has relied mainly on "enforcement actions" rather than "sufficient communication," suggesting that the regulatory approach urgently needs to be reversed. Uyeda has promised to promote the transparency of crypto policy-making, establish a cryptocurrency working group, and proactively engage in high-level dialogues with key industry participants, including the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI), MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, and representatives from Robinhood.
Crypto reserve bills in US states face obstacles, with Bitcoin volatility as the main concern
While the SEC's regulatory direction is shifting, state governments have taken a more cautious approach towards Bitcoin reserves.
According to the Bitcoin Laws database, 24 states in the U.S. have currently proposed strategic crypto reserve bills. However, in the past month, the crypto reserve bills in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming have all encountered setbacks and failed to be passed.
Legislators generally express concerns about the volatility of digital assets such as Bitcoin.
Jennifer Schulp, Director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute, stated in an interview with Bloomberg that the volatility of Bitcoin and all digital assets is a recognized issue, even if the industry's prospects are positive.
Since reserve funds are typically used for low-risk investments to secure future funding needs, the price volatility of Bitcoin significantly reduces its appeal as a state-level reserve asset.
BitpushNews previously reported that the reserve bill in South Dakota proposed allocating up to 10% of the state's funds to Bitcoin, but it was ultimately shelved. Although figures like former President Trump and Senator Cynthia Lummis have proposed the idea of establishing a national strategic Bitcoin reserve, state-level governments remain conservative in actual implementation.
Schulp said, "If at the national level, a government that is very supportive of cryptocurrencies is taking the time to consider a strategic Bitcoin reserve, then the states would follow suit rather than rushing into it, which is reasonable."
Stablecoins and market structure become the focus of legislation
The White House has established a policy task force led by venture capitalist David Sacks to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework. At the same time, Congress has accelerated its legislative pace, with the Senate Banking Committee planning to vote on a stablecoin bill next month, making stablecoin regulation a potential legislative breakthrough in the near future.
Tyler Williams, the new crypto advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department, gave a speech at a private digital asset event in Washington, D.C., emphasizing that pushing for stablecoin legislation is a current important task.
The former Galaxy Digital lawyer stated at the event: "We should support our friends in Congress who are working on stablecoin policy as much as we can."
He believes that establishing a legal framework for dollar-denominated stablecoins will be a "very good use case" for industry allies to push in Washington, and said: "If we can develop a regulatory framework for it in a way that allows all the states, bank regulators, and the entire ecosystem to operate under the same rules, I think that would be a pretty good outcome for Washington."
Beyond stablecoin legislation, the deeper game is how to set operational standards for exchanges like Coinbase and how to define the securities and commodity attributes of digital assets, which directly relates to the division of responsibilities and power boundaries between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Short-term regulatory pressure may ease, but long-term challenges remain severe
In summary, although the progress of crypto reserve bills in U.S. states has been slow, the adjustment of the SEC's regulatory strategy at the federal level has provided the crypto industry with a certain breathing space. However, there are still many variables in the future regulatory framework. The friction between the crypto industry and the SEC may temporarily ease, but the "protracted war" surrounding crypto legislation has just begun.
