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Coinucation
Wednesday, October 7, 2026 · Morning edition
No. 1,206 · 300 coins tracked · Printed from live data
The daily record of crypto prices, flows and fees
Glossary · regulation

SEC

The SEC is the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulator that decides whether crypto assets are securities and oversees crypto ETFs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission regulates securities markets in the United States. Its role in crypto turns on one question: is a given token a security? If it is, then issuing and trading it must follow securities law, including registration and disclosure. The SEC uses the Howey test, a 1946 Supreme Court standard, to decide whether an asset is an investment contract.

Under chair Gary Gensler from 2021 to early 2025, the SEC took the position that most tokens other than Bitcoin were securities and brought cases against Coinbase, Binance, Ripple, and others. A 2023 court ruling in the Ripple case found that XRP sales on exchanges were not securities offerings, while institutional sales were. The agency also approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and spot Ethereum ETFs in July 2024.

After the change of administration in 2025, the SEC dropped or paused several enforcement cases and formed a crypto task force to develop clearer rules. The division of responsibility between the SEC and the CFTC, which oversees commodities, remains a central issue in US crypto legislation.

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