The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made the development of a regulatory framework for digital assets one of its top priorities under its five-year strategic plan. The regulator intends to establish a comprehensive framework for crypto assets, tokenized instruments, blockchain infrastructure, and related financial services.
The SEC has published its draft Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2026 through 2030, signaling a notable shift in the agency’s approach to digital assets. While the regulator has historically focused on enforcement, it is now prioritizing the creation of clear and predictable rules for market participants.
In the document, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins emphasized that the agency remains committed to its core mission of protecting investors, maintaining efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.
For the first time, digital assets have been designated as a standalone strategic objective. The SEC acknowledged that the rapid development of blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency market has outpaced existing regulations. According to the agency, distributed ledger technology (DLT) has the potential to improve the efficiency of the US financial system, reduce costs, enhance transparency, and expand access to capital.
One of the plan’s central objectives is to establish clear guidance on how securities laws apply to digital assets. The SEC aims to provide legal certainty for issuers and investors while supporting the issuance of tokenized financial instruments and the development of on-chain capital market infrastructure. The document states that regulation should serve as a tool for enabling compliant capital formation through tokenized instruments and new digital financing mechanisms.
The draft also places particular emphasis on infrastructure providers. The Commission believes a unified and coordinated supervisory framework is needed for digital asset custody services, trading platforms, and staking providers. At the same time, the regulator seeks to eliminate situations in which companies face overlapping or conflicting requirements from multiple agencies.
Another key component of the strategy is the effort to clearly define the respective responsibilities of the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The document notes that a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets cannot be achieved without establishing clear jurisdictional boundaries between the two regulators.
It is worth noting that after the CLARITY Act faced delays in Congress, the heads of the SEC and CFTC signaled their willingness to develop a regulatory framework for the crypto industry independently and signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen coordination. The issue of jurisdictional division was also incorporated into the updated digital asset market structure bill released in May.
Beyond digital assets, the SEC’s strategy calls for a broader modernization of capital markets regulation. The agency plans to:
- streamline disclosure requirements;
- expand access to funding for entrepreneurs and small businesses;
- review outdated rules that create unnecessary barriers to innovation.
The document also outlines a reform of the SEC’s supervisory and enforcement approach. The regulator intends to focus on combating fraud, market manipulation, and other clear violations of the law, moving away from efforts to expand regulatory authority through individual court cases and administrative proceedings. At the same time, the SEC plans to review existing regulations and assess the effectiveness of its administrative framework.
Technology modernization is another major priority. According to the SEC, the agency oversees more than 33,000 entities, including investment advisers, brokers, funds, and transfer agents, while supervising markets that process hundreds of trillions of dollars in annual trading volume. To strengthen oversight capabilities, the SEC plans to modernize its core IT systems, expand the use of artificial intelligence, and explore the application of blockchain technology within its own operations.
In developing the strategic plan, the SEC consulted with members of Congress, investors, businesses, financial market participants, academics, and other stakeholders. The draft has been released for public comment, with feedback accepted through July 2.
The announcement follows recent remarks by Paul Atkins clarifying the legal status of cryptocurrencies and outlining which categories of digital assets may fall outside the scope of US securities laws under certain conditions.
