On Monday, @Bitwise filed our comment letter on the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets. Our ask: a practical framework for a question Bitwise has wrestled with for nearly a decade. How do we determine whether a crypto asset is a security or is subject to an investment contract? Bitwise evaluates crypto assets every day. We ask: What do they do? How were they created? Can we put them into our products? For years, answering that last question has required analysis with limited information and uncertain standards. This letter draws on over five years of engaging with the SEC Staff on these issues. We’ve long wanted a framework a company can actually apply without commissioning a bespoke Howey analysis for every crypto asset. Regulation Crypto gives us an opportunity to get there. The proposal focuses on issuers. Our letter proposes changes to make it work for companies like Bitwise that use crypto assets as the building blocks of investment products. We make two principal requests: 1. A standard outsiders can apply to determine when a crypto asset is no longer subject to an investment contract, based on publicly available information. We can evaluate what an issuer promised, what it has done and what activities continue. We cannot verify its private intentions. 2. Clear rules for when non-issuers may rely on an issuer’s Form TR, how to make a determination when no Form TR exists, and what facts would make reliance unreasonable. These questions shape what we can build for investors. This letter puts years of experience to work advocating for rules that give us greater certainty and room to build. Read our letter: sec.gov/comments/S7-2026-27/…

As more of the world comes onchain via tokenized stocks, here are three things I am thinking about from a securities law perspective. All three are live questions in the SEC’s proposed transfer agent rules (Release 34-106246, comments due November 3), the first substantive rewrite of rules written in the late 1970s, when owning stock meant holding a paper certificate. TLDR: I think this is positive. If you are building here, this is the moment to read the SEC’s 175 questions in the proposed rule and give them your answers. 🧵