rules

According to Forbes, Plume's legal advisor B. Salman Banaei testified before Congress, strongly urging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to expedite the development of tokenization rules while advancing the full ATS (Alternative Trading System) registration for DeFi protocols, rather than relying solely on "innovation exemptions."Banaei criticized the SEC for "putting all its eggs in one basket with innovation exemptions," calling this approach "foolish," and warned that setting volume and product limitations would fail to attract large institutions, "because they will not invest resources in an infrastructure that may not exist in two or three years." He also suggested that the SEC seek feedback on the current incompatibilities in the rules and develop permanent solutions.Plume was approved by the SEC in October 2025 to become a registered transfer agent, capable of handling shareholder records, transfers, and dividends for on-chain tokenized securities, and is currently awaiting a FINRA broker-dealer license. Banaei pointed out that there are only 10 months left in the current SEC leadership window, and action must be taken quickly to promote the development of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.

According to market news, Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad has called on U.S. lawmakers to reform cryptocurrency tax rules, stating that current laws are outdated. Treating crypto assets as "property" results in tax obligations even for paying gas fees or using stablecoins for everyday transactions, requiring users to calculate cost basis, track gains and losses, and report, creating a compliance burden.Coinbase data shows that the volume of tax-related customer service inquiries has increased by 34% compared to the same period last year, and millions of 1099-DA forms are expected to be issued in 2025, many of which involve very small transactions. Shirzad pointed out that over 63% of users have gaps in cost basis records, leading taxpayers to either overpay taxes or be forced to manually verify transactions. He suggested establishing a minimum exemption threshold for small transactions to eliminate the burden of reporting small payments. If tax rules are not adjusted, it may push users and innovation overseas, affecting the U.S. competitiveness in the crypto space.

A rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor to adjust 401(k) investment options has passed White House regulatory review and is expected to be released in the coming weeks. The rule may modify the fiduciary duty guidelines regulated by ERISA, allowing plan sponsors to include cryptocurrency and private equity as investment options.This proposal stems from an executive order previously signed by Trump, which directed relevant departments to promote alternative assets into the retirement account system. Currently, the rule is classified as "having significant economic impact" and is still pending further advancement.

According to Cointelegraph, the Thane District Court in India ruled on March 23 that there was no preliminary evidence of a crime involving CoinDCX co-founder Sumit Gupta and Niraj Khandelwal in a fraud case involving 7.1 million rupees (approximately $75,000), and granted bail to the two.The court investigation revealed that the fraudulent activity actually occurred on the counterfeit website coindcx.pro, which has no connection to the official CoinDCX platform. The main suspect, Rana, has fully refunded the victims, who also confirmed in court that the two founders were not the parties they met at the café.CoinDCX subsequently issued a statement characterizing the incident as "third-party impersonation" and reminded users to verify domain names and interact only through official channels to guard against the increasingly rampant impersonation and phishing scams in India's cryptocurrency industry.

The Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Michael S. Selig, announced the establishment of an Innovation Working Group aimed at developing clear regulatory rules for innovators creating new products and technologies in the U.S. derivatives market.This Innovation Working Group will collaborate with the Innovation Advisory Committee to advance the development of a clear regulatory framework, focusing on three areas: (i) crypto assets and blockchain technology; (ii) artificial intelligence and autonomous systems; and (iii) prediction markets and event contracts.The responsibilities of the working group include advancing the Commission's innovation agenda and collaborating with federal agencies and departments, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its cryptocurrency working group, to promote various innovation initiatives. The working group will be led by the Chairman's Senior Advisor, Michael J. Passalacqua.

Stablecoin issuer Circle calls on the EU to accelerate the reform of the digital asset regulatory framework, believing that the current pace may slow down institutional adoption of the tokenized market.In feedback regarding the EU's "Market Integration Proposal," Circle stated that the proposal is an important step towards modernizing capital markets, but there are still shortcomings in scalability, regulatory mechanisms, and settlement rules. Circle supports the optimization of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) pilot framework, including expanding the range of assets that can be included and increasing the transaction size limit, but points out that existing restrictions still suppress liquidity and institutional participation. The company suggests introducing a "dynamic threshold" mechanism that allows regulatory parameters to automatically adjust according to market developments, rather than relying on periodic legislative updates. At the same time, Circle calls for a clear path for transitioning from the pilot phase to a formal regulatory system. Furthermore, Circle emphasizes the need to accelerate the pace of relevant reforms, warning that if regulatory progress is slow, it may lead to the migration of tokenized financial activities to faster-developing markets like the United States.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has submitted two proposed rules to the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, concerning the digital asset industry and the disclosure requirements for hedge funds and private equity funds. Among them, the digital asset proposal includes an "innovation exemption" mechanism that allows relevant companies to be exempt from registering as regulated entities such as brokers or exchanges for a certain period.The other rule adjusts Form PF, which is used for disclosing fund performance and risks. In addition, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins had previously postponed the effective date of the new Form PF regulations to October 1 and stated that he would explore ways to reduce the disclosure burden.

According to official news, Polymarket announced today that it has updated its DeFi platform and the market integrity rules of its U.S. exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). These rules have been incorporated into the Terms of Use of the DeFi platform and the Polymarket U.S. Rules Manual, further strengthening Polymarket's requirements against insider trading and market manipulation, and reaffirming Polymarket's commitment to maintaining market quality and protecting user rights.The updated rules clarify three core prohibited insider trading behaviors:Trading based on stolen confidential information ------ If a participant possesses confidential information about the outcome or potential outcomes of an underlying event, and using that information would violate a pre-existing trust or confidentiality obligation to others or entities, the participant may not engage in any contract trading.Prohibition on trading based on illegal insider information ------ Participants may not trade based on confidential information provided to them by others if that information was provided by someone who has a prior trust or confidentiality obligation to others, and the participant knows or has reason to know that the person providing that information would themselves be prohibited from trading based on that information.Trading by individuals who can influence the outcome ------ If a participant has the authority or influence sufficient to affect the outcome of the underlying event, they may not engage in any contract trading.

According to Cointelegraph, the Ethereum client team is testing a mechanism called Fast Confirmation Rules (FCR), aimed at compressing the deposit confirmation time from L1 to L2 networks and exchanges to about 13 seconds, reducing it by up to 98% compared to existing solutions. This mechanism was proposed by Ethereum researcher Julian Ma.FCR determines whether a block can be considered confirmed by evaluating the validators' attestations, rather than relying on the traditional block depth counting method. Its operation is based on two premises: that network message propagation is fast enough, and that no single entity holds more than 25% of the staked ETH. Currently, most users rely on canonical bridges to complete asset transfers, which typically require waiting about 13 minutes; some exchanges and L2s have adopted "k-depth" confirmation rules to shorten the wait, but this method lacks formal security guarantees.FCR can be deployed without a hard fork, and nodes can independently enable it without the need for coordination across the entire network. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed support for this, believing that the mechanism can provide "hard guarantees" for transactions within a single time slot (about 12 seconds) under specific network conditions. However, there are still voices of skepticism in the community, with some users concerned about whether its trust assumptions can hold up under network pressure. Currently, client and API integration work is still ongoing.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an article introducing a new Ethereum fast confirmation rule mechanism. This mechanism allows users to receive a hard guarantee that Ethereum transactions will not be reverted (Non-revert) after just one Slot (12 seconds). Vitalik pointed out that the security of this rule is based on two premises: first, that the vast majority of validators are honest nodes, and second, that network latency is below approximately 3 seconds. Although its security is slightly lower than economic finality, it already possesses strong reliability for many application scenarios.

Bitcoin Policy Institute calls for a revision of U.S. tax rules that treat all BTC payments as capital gains.

According to Cointelegraph, Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), delivered a speech at the SEC Investor Advisory Committee on Thursday, calling for regulators to simplify the disclosure requirements for public companies and to promote innovative exemption mechanisms for tokenized securities.Peirce pointed out that public companies spend a significant amount of resources preparing mandatory disclosure documents, but the related content often fails to effectively enhance the quality of information available to investors, and may instead lead to information obfuscation. She believes that regulators should avoid excessive intervention in the market.On the topic of tokenized securities, Peirce stated that SEC staff are continuing to advance research on potential innovative exemption mechanisms to allow for limited experimental exploration of tokenized securities during the assessment period under the current securities law framework. She also noted that blockchain systems are expected to enable faster settlements and reduce reliance on traditional intermediaries in certain scenarios.

According to The Block, the Federal Reserve has released a Q&A document clarifying that banks should treat tokenized securities according to existing capital rules, emphasizing that the current framework is "technology neutral."The Federal Reserve stated that the technology used to issue or transfer securities (including blockchain technology) will not affect its regulatory capital treatment, and eligible tokenized securities should be treated under the same rules as non-tokenized securities. Tokenized securities that meet the same legal and risk management requirements as traditional securities can be used as financial collateral. The Federal Reserve added that capital rules do not provide differential treatment regardless of whether a permissioned or permissionless chain is used. This move follows the SEC's clarification in January that tokenized securities must still comply with federal securities laws, providing further guidance from regulators on the application of traditional assets on-chain.

According to CoinDesk, CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) Chairman Mike Selig discussed the regulatory progress of cryptocurrency perpetual futures and prediction markets in his speech. He stated that the CFTC is working to launch "real perpetual futures" in the United States, with an announcement of related policies expected in about a month to attract liquidity back to the U.S. and provide investor protection.Additionally, he mentioned that the CFTC will soon provide guidance for prediction markets, including a notice of proposed rulemaking to set clear standards.

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Paul Atkins, stated that the SEC is working to reinvigorate the pace of progress in the field of cryptocurrency regulation to make up for previous shortcomings in policy-making.He pointed out at an event at the University of Texas that regulators have failed to timely adapt to industry innovation trends in the past. Atkins noted that since the Trump administration took office, the SEC's stance has become more open, having established a cryptocurrency working group, withdrawn multiple enforcement cases, and launched the "Project Crypto" initiative to promote updates to the regulatory framework. He emphasized that, compared to short-term price fluctuations, there is a greater focus on the application prospects of distributed ledger technology in payment, clearing, and settlement systems.Additionally, the SEC has approved WisdomTree's digital currency market fund for 24/7 trading and instant settlement this week. Atkins also revealed plans to explore the launch of tokenized bank deposit products in the future.

According to market news, the Arizona State Senate has advanced Bill SB 1649, which aims to establish a "Digital Asset Strategic Reserve Fund" managed by the State Treasury. It authorizes the State Treasurer to hold, invest, and lend seized, forfeited, or surrendered digital assets through qualified custodians or regulated exchange-traded products.The bill was passed by the Senate Finance Committee on February 16 with a vote of 4 in favor and 2 against, approved by the Senate Rules Committee, and will be submitted for a vote by the full Senate. The bill explicitly lists Bitcoin, XRP, DigiByte, stablecoins, and NFTs as qualified assets and sets a 1% benchmark threshold based on Bitcoin reaching $100,000 per coin, using a "cryptocurrency fair value scoring" system to filter other qualified digital assets. The bill emphasizes that related operations must not increase the state's financial risk. SB 1649 must first pass in the Senate before it can be submitted to the House, and ultimately to the Governor for signing.

Commissioner Hester Peirce of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wrote that she hopes to amend Rule 15c3-1 to more clearly cover payment stablecoins.Currently, the agency has released an FAQ that clarifies the regulatory treatment of payment stablecoins under the broker-dealer net capital rule framework, which mainly includes:If a broker-dealer applies a 2% capital haircut to its proprietary holdings of payment stablecoin assets when calculating net capital, regulators will not raise objections.Before the enactment of the GENIUS Act, "payment stablecoins" must be dollar-denominated, issued by state-regulated money transmission companies, state-regulated trust companies, or national trust banks, and meet conditions such as reserve asset requirements, redemption policy disclosures, and monthly attestation reports issued by certified public accountants; after the enactment of the act, they must comply with the definitions and requirements for "payment stablecoins" and "compliant issuers" as set forth in the GENIUS Act.

According to CoinDesk, a survey by the crypto tax platform Awaken Tax shows that over 50% of U.S. crypto investors are concerned about facing IRS penalties.New regulations require brokers like Coinbase to report all digital asset transactions to the IRS using Form 1099-DA to combat tax evasion. The IRS will obtain internal exchange data for the first time and compare it with taxpayer filings. Awaken Tax founder Andrew Duca pointed out that the rule equates crypto assets to stocks, but the actual operations are complex: users often transfer assets between multiple wallets and interact with DeFi, while brokers can only report sales proceeds and cannot provide the tax basis (purchase cost), resulting in incomplete forms. Taxpayers need to supplement cost information themselves using Form 8949. Currently, the compliance rate for crypto taxes is less than 20%.

According to CoinDesk, a survey by the crypto tax platform Awaken Tax shows that over 50% of U.S. crypto investors are concerned about facing IRS penalties this year.New regulations require brokers like Coinbase to report all digital asset transactions for 2025 to the IRS using Form 1099-DA to combat tax evasion. The IRS will obtain internal exchange data for the first time and compare it with taxpayer filings. Founder Andrew Duca pointed out that the rule equates crypto assets to stocks, but the actual operation is complex: users often transfer assets between multiple wallets and interact with DeFi, while brokers can only report sales proceeds and cannot provide the tax basis (purchase cost), resulting in incomplete forms. Taxpayers need to supplement cost information themselves using Form 8949. Currently, the crypto tax compliance rate is below 20%.