rules

A proposal by the U.S. Department of Labor to allow 401(k) retirement plans to allocate alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies has been submitted to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for final review on Thursday. The proposal aims to simplify the process for retirement plans to offer alternative investments and provide certain legal protections for employers and plan administrators. The version released by the Department of Labor in March did not specify which digital assets could be included, nor did it set a minimum market capitalization threshold, but it requires administrators to assess six factors: performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, benchmarks, and complexity.Teresa Goody Guillén, managing partner of Bellementis PLLC, stated that Bitcoin and Ethereum may be adopted first due to their mature markets and investment products, but altcoins will not be automatically excluded; plan administrators must demonstrate that their investment choices meet standards of prudence, liquidity, valuation, and investor protection. Bernardo Brites, co-founder and CEO of Trace Finance, noted that some smaller tokens may struggle to meet historical performance and benchmark requirements. The proposal does not limit crypto investments to ETFs or managed funds, but Guillén expects such products may emerge before direct holdings.

The Vice President of Technology at the Solana Foundation, Jacob Creech, responded to the controversy arising from the recent adjustments to the Solana Foundation Delegated Program (SFDP). The adjustments include: setting the participation period for validators in the SFDP to 12 months, automatic graduation after staking 300,000 SOL, capping the number of validators at 100, and requiring participants to run their own validator nodes.Jacob Creech stated that the SFDP originally had three main tasks: to help new validators get started, to establish a healthy testnet, and to allow some validators to test network updates early. As the Solana ecosystem expands and the validator community matures, the original mechanisms have struggled to adequately meet the ever-changing demands of the network. The foundation hopes to shift towards a more proactive and flexible delegation mechanism, focusing on supporting network health and ecosystem contributors. The SFDP will continue to support new validators, and the foundation will also reward validators who make significant contributions to network health through delegation outside of the program. Previously, the foundation had delegated staking to ecosystem contributors like Blueshift and supported validators who were the first to test Frankendancer.In response to community concerns that the adjustments might lead to a decrease in the number of validators, Jacob Creech stated that reducing the number of validators is not the goal of this adjustment. However, if enough high-quality contributors cannot be found, a decline in the number of validators may become a side effect. He also revealed that over 100 validators have submitted materials to apply for continued support.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the U.S. Department of Labor's final rule aimed at facilitating the inclusion of alternative assets such as private equity, real estate, and cryptocurrencies in retirement plans has been submitted to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review on Thursday. This submission indicates that the rule is nearing completion and public release, but is still in the review stage.The Department of Labor announced the relevant proposal on March 30. According to the previous proposal, trustees can obtain legal safe harbor protection when including private assets in 401(k) plan investment options, provided they meet six criteria. These six criteria are investment performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, performance benchmarks, and complexity.

The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have withdrawn a previously proposed rule draft that aimed to lower the threshold for the "Travel Rule" regarding cross-border fund transfers from $3,000 to $250. After the withdrawal, the $3,000 threshold continues to apply, including for eligible cryptocurrency transfers under current FinCEN guidelines.The proposal was jointly issued by FinCEN and the Federal Reserve in 2020 and applies to fund transfers and remittances that originate or terminate outside the United States, while the domestic transaction threshold remains unchanged at $3,000. The proposal also clarifies that the relevant rules apply to convertible virtual currency transactions and digital assets with legal tender status, and requires financial institutions to collect, retain, and transmit specific transaction information as mandated.

The proposal from the U.S. SEC regarding amendments to the financial responsibility, recordkeeping, and reporting rules for cryptocurrency asset brokers has been submitted for review by the White House.

According to an announcement released by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand on October 29, the agency has publicly solicited opinions on a series of draft notifications to amend the licensing framework for derivative businesses, covering derivative exchanges, derivative clearinghouses, and intermediary businesses, to support the inclusion of digital assets in the scope of underlying assets recognized by the Derivatives Act. According to the proposal, digital asset operators can apply for a derivative business license without establishing a new company.According to MediaNama, the proposed digital asset derivative license will allow for activities such as derivative agency, proprietary trading, investment consulting, and investment management, with a license fee of 500,000 Thai Baht. Existing digital asset exchanges, brokers, and dealers can be exempt from application fees and license fees. Among digital asset operators, only exchanges and brokers can apply to operate derivative exchanges, while digital asset custodians are not allowed to apply for clearinghouse licenses. The deadline for public consultation is November 28, and the Thai SEC has solicited opinions on related principles from April to May of this year.

According to a report by CNBC, data from Public Citizen shows that crypto-related organizations have donated over $200 million in this round of the U.S. election cycle, attempting to influence the 2026 midterm elections and push Congress to pass regulations favorable to the industry. One of the current priority goals for the industry is to promote comprehensive digital asset market structure legislation after the Clarity Act was stalled.Fairshake and its affiliated super PAC are supporting 33 House candidates, including 19 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Coinbase and Ripple each donated $25 million to Fairshake's midterm election efforts in 2025. The Ohio Senate election is a key battleground.Fairshake stated that this election cycle has spent $55 million opposing long-time critic of the crypto industry, Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown, whose opponent is pro-crypto Republican incumbent Senator Jon Husted.The advocacy organization Stand With Crypto, initiated by Coinbase, has endorsed 45 candidates, including 42 House candidates and 3 Senate candidates. The Clarity Act was stalled in the Senate in September, with Democratic lawmakers arguing that it is insufficient to prevent government officials from profiting from crypto businesses.Reports indicate that if the bill cannot advance by the end of the year, the new Congress will need to restart market structure legislation. Coinbase Vice Chairman Ryan VanGrack stated that regardless of who is elected, the industry will still gain more regulatory clarity, but there remains uncertainty about whether legislation can ultimately be completed.

According to The Defiant, Uniswap, venture capital firm a16z, and the DeFi Education Fund (DEF) are appealing to the cryptocurrency tax regulations in Illinois, USA, seeking exemptions for decentralized finance activities.The aforementioned organizations argue that wallet withdrawals and cross-chain bridging should not be included in the tax assessment based on asset value, while also requesting the elimination of the requirement to maintain records of private keys.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has finalized the implementation rules for the GENIUS Act, applicable to licensed stablecoin issuers, foreign issuers under OCC jurisdiction, and certain custodial activities of regulated entities, covering reserve support, redemption, and risk management. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the legislation as a "watershed moment for the U.S. financial industry," comparing it to the National Currency Act of 1863.The final rules do not include provisions for the Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering, and OFAC sanctions, which will be addressed through subsequent rules coordinated with the Treasury Department. The GENIUS Act was signed into law in July 2025, and regulators failed to establish rules by the deadline of July 18, 2026; the Federal Reserve proposed two related rules in September 2026. Both the GENIUS Act and the OCC final rules are set to take effect on January 18, 2027, and the OCC has not yet announced the timeline for accepting issuer applications and exemption requests.

The S&P Dow Jones Indices has adjusted the rules for classifying stocks into growth and value categories, incorporating intangible assets, expected earnings, and free cash flow as evaluation factors. The new rules will take effect before the market opens on December 21, potentially forcing funds that track the relevant indices to adjust their holdings. At least $375 billion in passive fund assets are linked to the affected indices.

a16z Frontier founding partner Chris Dixon stated that early Web2 platforms were built on fragile tacit agreements: independent creators, bloggers, news media, and community volunteers contributed high-quality content for free, while platforms provided traffic distribution, audience accumulation, and commercial revenue opportunities.He pointed out that after forming a monopoly through network effects, platforms continuously tightened algorithms, forcing creators to pay for traffic. With the advent of the generative AI era, large model companies collect long-accumulated content from the entire internet through crawlers and directly provide answers in search and Q&A interfaces, no longer diverting traffic to the original websites, thus severing the economic cycle of independent creators.Dixon believes that if this trend continues, high-quality original content may be depleted, and the internet could be flooded with low-quality machine-generated content. He proposed that verifiable data ownership could be established through blockchain protocols, allowing data calls, reasoning, and training to be traceable and automatically receive economic returns. Reshaping this contract is one of the important missions of the Frontier fund.

The American Blockchain Association stated that it has submitted comments on the proposed implementation rules for Section 3 of the GENIUS Act by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The association recommends clarifying the scope of "digital asset service providers" to exclude self-custody software, validators, and businesses that only trade their own assets; regarding criminal liability for participating in the illegal issuance of stablecoins, it should be based on actual knowledge and substantial assistance coordinated with the issuer.The association also suggested that trading platforms could determine the compliance of foreign stablecoins based on the official issuer list and trading bans, and adjust the criteria for determining user locations in unlicensed agreements.

According to Bloomberg, Hyperliquid Labs co-founder Jeff Yan is seeking the United States to establish rules that can protect its blockchain. He believes that Hyperliquid's regulatory responsibilities should fall on the financial institutions operating markets based on that blockchain, namely the application layer, rather than the blockchain network itself. This regulatory division allows Hyperliquid to enter Wall Street without bearing the full compliance burden of traditional exchanges.Jeff Yan also stated that Hyperliquid is currently not open to U.S. customers, and Hyperliquid prefers to be the underlying trading technology used by traditional financial institutions, rather than replacing existing market participants, positioning itself similarly to how Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides computing infrastructure for businesses.

On October 15, MSCI revised the eligibility rules for constituents of the global investable market index, tightening the definition of "non-operating companies" and subjecting Bitcoin treasury companies to stricter scrutiny. The Strategy led by Michael Saylor has not been removed from the MSCI index.MSCI stated that it will assess whether a company qualifies as a "non-operating" company based on its operational and financial characteristics, and companies holding digital assets may still have genuine operational activities; existing constituents are still subject to a buffering mechanism, and the relevant consequences will need to be clarified further in the November index review.

According to Bloomberg, Jeff Yan, co-founder of Hyperliquid Labs, is seeking the United States to establish rules that can protect its blockchain.He believes that the regulatory responsibilities of Hyperliquid should fall on the financial institutions operating in the market based on that blockchain, namely the application layer, rather than on the blockchain network itself. This regulatory division would allow Hyperliquid to enter Wall Street without having to bear the full compliance burden of traditional exchanges.

On October 16, MSCI announced the formal adoption of the non-operating company index exclusion rules, which will be implemented in the index review in November 2026 and will take effect after the market closes on November 30.The new rules first assess whether a company has substantial operating assets; companies that do not pass the initial screening will undergo five financial ratio tests, and if at least four of these meet the exclusion criteria, they will not qualify for index inclusion.As a result, Bitcoin treasury company Strategy and Metaplanet face potential exclusion, with the final list to be announced on November 11. JPMorgan previously estimated that if Strategy is removed from the MSCI index, it would face approximately $2.8 billion in selling pressure.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that Jonathan Gould, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), stated that the final rules for implementing the GENIUS Act are expected to be released soon, by the end of October.Gould made this statement at the "Building the New Digital Economy" event hosted by the Milken Institute, which coincided with DC Fintech Week.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has launched a public consultation on proposed capital, custody, and trading requirements for cryptocurrency platforms. The related rules aim to align with the digital asset legislation passed in April and expand regulation of the industry. The proposals include three capital models, restrictions on platforms conducting proprietary trading, and quarterly reporting of wallets holding customer assets.ASIC also intends to allow offshore custody and is seeking opinions on safeguards in the event of the failure of overseas parent companies or affiliates. One of the models requires platforms that do not adopt qualified third-party custody arrangements to hold at least AUD 14 million (approximately USD 9.7 million) in net tangible assets or 10% of average revenue, whichever is higher. Feedback is due by November 27, and ASIC plans to release final standards and guidelines in March 2027. The related laws will take effect on April 8, 2027, and operators must apply for licenses by October 7 of the same year, with the ability to continue operations during the ASIC review period.

The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission has completed the rule-making for Bitcoin ETFs, and the new regulations will take effect on October 16. Bitcoin has been included as a qualified asset in the first phase.According to the rules, the average net exposure of the relevant funds for each accounting year must reach at least 80% of the net asset value. The custodian must be licensed by the Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission, and fund shares can only be traded on the Thailand Stock Exchange. Securities companies are not allowed to provide margin financing. Thai mutual funds and private funds will be permitted to invest in locally listed cryptocurrency ETFs, but initially, the issuance and provision of depositary receipts related to overseas cryptocurrency ETFs are prohibited.