Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

In a recent social media post and television interview, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins announced that US capital markets are "poised to move on-chain.” At the same time, on December 11, 2025, the SEC staff issued a no-action letter to a prominent registered clearing agency and securities depositary to launch a  securities tokenization pilot program. The pilot program will allow participants to transfer tokenized securities to registered wallets of other participants.

On November 10, 2025, Chairman John Boozman (R-MT) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee released a discussion draft of legislation regulating crypto markets in the United States. The draft is similar in several ways to the Clarity Act, which the House of Representatives passed in July 2025.

On May 29, 2025, staff in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued a statement on “Certain Protocol Staking Activities.” For certain “staking” activities on blockchain networks that use proof-of-stake (“PoS”) as a consensus mechanism (“PoS Networks”), the SEC staff is of the view that such activities do not involve the offer and sale of securities under the SEC’s Howey test.

On February 27, 2025, staff in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued a public statement on so-called meme coins. According to the statement, meme coins meeting certain specified conditions will not be deemed securities for purposes of the federal securities laws.