The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is set to consider a proposed “Regulation Crypto” framework at a public meeting on Aug. 14 that could give certain token projects a defined route to raise capital without completing a full securities registration. The proposal under discussion would also examine when a project could move outside SEC oversight after its developers no longer actively manage the network and it has reached sufficient decentralization.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins has previously indicated that an exemption period could run for as long as four years, offering a temporary compliance path for projects building functional networks. The meeting notice did not specify a fundraising cap, leaving open one of the questions likely to shape the practical reach of any eventual rule.
The initiative would mark a departure from the SEC’s case-by-case enforcement approach toward token issuance, which has often left founders trying to determine whether a network’s token is a security only after a launch or enforcement action. A tailored exemption could give qualifying teams a more structured way to distribute tokens while they build infrastructure, establish governance and reduce the role of a central development group.
SEC weighs issuance rules and tokenized-stock safeguards
The Aug. 14 agenda also includes discussion of a tailored issuance regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets, as well as a potential “innovation exemption” for the digital trading of securities.
A draft framework being discussed could address tokenized versions of conventional shares, according to the material provided. It may allow listed companies to object if a third party seeks to offer tokenized representations of their stock without permission. Such a mechanism would give issuers more control over whether and how their equity is represented on blockchain-based venues.
The same draft could impose stricter anti-money-laundering standards on token-trading platforms. Under the proposal described, venues handling tokenized securities would need to be registered in the United States. That requirement would place tokenized stocks closer to the regulated securities-market infrastructure than to the more open model used by many offshore crypto platforms.
The SEC has not yet published final rule text, and a public meeting is only the beginning of the formal process. Any proposal would generally require a commission vote, publication and a public-comment period before binding rules could take effect. Yet the planned discussion offers a clearer view of Atkins’ effort to establish policy tools for crypto issuance and on-chain securities trading rather than rely mainly on litigation.
Kalshi dispute exposes federal-state tension
The week’s regulatory developments also include an escalating conflict over prediction-market operator Kalshi, where federal and state authorities have taken sharply different positions on sports-event contracts.
A federal judge in Connecticut rejected Kalshi’s request for a preliminary injunction and ruled that the platform’s sports-event contracts are not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act. That finding meant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission did not obtain exclusive jurisdiction over the products on the basis argued by Kalshi.
The court said sports-related contracts generate roughly 80% to 90% of Kalshi’s listings and revenue. It also noted that the CFTC had not reviewed those contracts under a special rule applicable to certain event contracts. The ruling leaves Kalshi facing a more uncertain legal map, particularly where state gambling laws collide with the company’s position that it operates a federally regulated derivatives venue.
The CFTC subsequently said it exercised “emergency powers” to require Kalshi to continue operating in New York after state Attorney General Letitia James filed a late-July lawsuit seeking to halt the platform’s activity. The agency said it acted after Kalshi asked for assistance.
The dispute illustrates the practical stakes of classification. Whether an event contract falls under commodities law, state gambling law, or another regulatory category determines which authority can impose operating conditions, enforcement penalties or shutdown orders. Courts and regulators are now being asked to draw those boundaries while prediction markets expand beyond political and economic questions into sports.
Security warning targets some COLDCARD Mk3 wallets
A separate technical warning has raised concerns about potentially vulnerable COLDCARD Mk3 hardware wallets. An analysis circulated by researcher @KLoaec said affected devices may derive randomness from approximately 4.5 million possible initial states, a range that could be searched in about three seconds using one Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card.
Even after accounting for uncertainty in wallet-generation methods, the analysis estimated that a search could take roughly 50 minutes on one high-end GPU. The underlying concern is that weak randomness during seed generation could allow separate devices to produce identical recovery phrases, potentially exposing funds if an attacker can identify the vulnerable generation process.
Hardware-wallet security depends heavily on entropy, the unpredictability used to generate private keys and seed phrases. Users of affected models would need to consult the manufacturer’s guidance and the underlying technical analysis before moving assets, rather than assume every Mk3 device faces identical exposure. The reported issue concerns a potentially narrow set of wallet-generation conditions, but the estimates show why weaknesses in random-number generation can be more serious than ordinary software bugs.
Cost pressure reaches a major crypto asset manager
Bitwise Asset Management reduced its workforce by about 14%, lowering headcount from roughly 180 employees to about 155, according to the supplied information. The cuts came during a period of lower digital-asset prices.
Bitwise manages about $9 billion in assets and offers more than 70 products. Its bitcoin ETF holds about $2.3 billion. The reduction shows that even firms with established exchange-traded products and a broad product range can adjust staffing when asset values and fee-linked revenue weaken.
Market conditions were mixed over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin declined 1.79%, Ethereum fell 2.48%, XRP dropped 2.28% and Solana lost 1.16%, according to the figures provided. TRON rose 0.12%, while Chainlink gained 2.39%. These short-term moves do not explain Bitwise’s decision on their own, but they reflect the volatile conditions facing firms whose revenues are often tied to asset prices, trading activity and product demand.
On-chain activity rises at Robinhood Chain
Robinhood Chain recorded an average of 11.60 million daily transactions in the past week, up about 30% from the prior week, according to project tracking data included in the material. Total value locked reached $473 million, a 32% increase.
Average daily active accounts rose 3.3% week over week, though the figure remained 11% below its July 16 peak. The gap between sharply higher transactions and modest account growth suggests that existing users, automated applications, or both were responsible for much of the increase in network activity.
USDe led stablecoin balances on the chain with $253 million, representing about 43% of the stablecoin total. Its balance stood near $17 million one month earlier. That increase places stablecoin liquidity at the center of the chain’s recent expansion, while also making the composition and durability of that liquidity more relevant than raw transaction counts alone.
Hyperliquid, meanwhile, averaged 96,030 daily active users over the past week, according to an account tracking the project. The figures point to sustained activity across trading-focused blockchain applications even as U.S. agencies prepare rules that could reshape how tokens, tokenized securities and market platforms operate.
For deeper context on shifting U.S. crypto rules, explore how Regulation Crypto could reshape market oversight and investor protections.
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