SEC Cancels Planned Meeting on Registration Exemptions for Crypto Tokens

The SEC said Thursday (Aug. 13) that the meeting would be moved “due to an unforeseen scheduling issue,” according to Reuters. The agency did not announce a new date.

The cancellation delays a vote on whether to propose highly anticipated exemptions that could allow crypto startups to raise capital without complying with traditional securities-offering requirements. The meeting would not have produced final regulations but could have launched a notice-and-comment rulemaking process for an industry that has long complained that existing securities rules do not fit digital assets.

As PYMNTS reported Thursday, the scheduled meeting represented a potentially important transition in the SEC’s approach to crypto: from regulation by enforcement toward regulation by exemption and from policy developed through enforcement cases and staff statements toward formal notice-and-comment rulemaking.

The cancellation puts that transition temporarily on hold at a particularly consequential moment. Congress has again failed to complete work on comprehensive digital-asset market-structure legislation, leaving the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission increasingly responsible for filling the regulatory gap.