The Securities and Exchange Commission will hold an open meeting Friday, Aug. 14, at 10 a.m. ET to formally propose Reg Crypto, a new rule that would create a tailored offering path for certain crypto investment contracts, according to a notice the agency posted Monday night. It’s the SEC’s first attempt at a binding rule for crypto market structure, arriving just days after the Senate closed its August recess without voting on the CLARITY Act.

Inside Friday’s SEC Meeting

The SEC’s three sitting commissioners, all Republicans, will open Reg Crypto for public comment at Friday’s meeting. The agency gave unusually short notice under the Sunshine Act, but the proposal has been on its agenda since at least early July.

Reg Crypto is the name for the SEC’s first formal rule clarifying which federal securities laws apply to crypto assets, and how, replacing the case-by-case guidance the agency has relied on so far. In practice, it’s expected to give crypto firms a formal path to raise capital for projects without triggering full SEC registration requirements. 

It would also spell out an exit route: once a team is no longer actively managing a project day to day, the token could move outside the SEC’s ongoing jurisdiction. Until now, the agency has addressed these questions mainly through staff statements and speeches, which carry far less legal weight than a completed rule.

What This Means for Crypto Founders

For founders and fundraising platforms, Reg Crypto would be the first written framework letting U.S. crypto projects raise money without immediately triggering securities registration, a gap that has pushed some offerings offshore. It also gives projects a defined way to eventually step outside SEC oversight once control is decentralized. 

This proposal is part of a wider push by the SEC to build durable crypto rules through formal rulemaking rather than one-off guidance, following the SEC and CFTC’s joint crypto asset taxonomy issued earlier this year.

Why the Sept. 15 CLARITY Act Vote Still Matters

Senate Republicans are aiming for a procedural cloture vote on Sept. 15 to move CLARITY forward, but the bill is still stuck on three sticking points: ethics rules, stablecoin reward structures and how enforcement authority gets split. TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote in a client note that Reg Crypto looks like “the first of several rulemakings” the SEC will pursue now that Congress has stalled. 

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in a July interview that the agency can address many of CLARITY’s core market structure issues on its own, though he added that congressional legislation would still offer clearer, longer-term direction than rulemaking alone.

The proposal will open for public comment, typically a two- to three-month window, before any final rule takes shape. That timeline means Reg Crypto won’t take effect for months even if it clears Friday’s vote cleanly.

What this means for you: This marks the SEC’s first move toward a written rule governing how crypto projects can legally raise capital in the U.S., rather than continuing to rely on the case-by-case guidance it has used until now.