The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued new guidelines that could facilitate a broader institutional use of digital assets.
In an updated FAQ of 15 May, the agency has set how existing securities laws apply to broker’s dealers and transfer agents involved in crypto services.
In commentary on the development, SEC commissioner Hester Peirce noted that the guidelines is ‘incrementally, not extensive’, which is signing that broader regulatory updates are still underway.
She added:
“Many of the answers to these frequently asked questions should not be controversial because they simply repeat what our rules say or do not say.”
In the meantime, Chainlink welcomed the update and called it an important step forward because the long -term concerns of financial institutions tackle the use of public block chains for registration, compliance and data privacy.
While the SEC guidance fell with little fanfare, sources and records appears that it was partially formed by a few closed door meetings between Chainlink Labs and the Crypto Task Force in March.
Earlier this year, the legal delegation of Chainlink workflows presented that demonstrated how smart contracts and privacy -retaining middleware could maintain the securities law on public chains. Co-founder Sergey Nazarov then informed staff on a cross-chain transfer agent architecture that reflects Legacy processes, but ingrained with automated compliance.
Allegedly, these sessions helped the SEC-craft steel around “Unified Golden Records” and “Smart-Contract-Driven Compliance checks”, which now appear in the FAQ itself.
Sec’s crypto guidance
The update outlines how legal requirements such as guardianship obligations and capital rules interact with digital assets.
According to the SEC, broker dealers who hold non-security crypto, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are not subject to the rules for customer protection under rule 15c3-3, which only apply to securities. This distinction gives companies more precisely limits about which types of digital assets fall within traditional guardianship rules.
In addition, the guidelines clarify how broker dealers should treat positions in digital assets for net capital purposes.
Although the focus remains on BTC and ETH, which is currently underlying approved exhibition-related products (ETPs), the SEC notes that this does not imply that broker dealers are limited to keeping only those two assets.
However, the agency also warned that digital assets that are not classified as effects as effects do not benefit from protection under the Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA). This means that customers can be exposed to extra risk when keeping non-security crypto through registered companies.
In addition to the guidelines for broker dealer, the updated frequently asked questions also tackle how transfer agents can use with distributed ledger technology (DLT), including public blockchains, to keep up with the securities records.
The SEC states that transfer agents can use DLT as their official Master security holders, provided that they comply with all registration, compliance and reporting obligations under current securities legislation.
The committee added that the specific technology used to the discretion of the transfer agent is, as long as the data remain safe, accurate, accessible to the SEC and are stored for the required duration.
What this means for markets and chain link
The immediate implication is that American financial institutions can start moving core fund activities on the chain, the adoption of infrastructure approved by regulator. This opens the door to mass cost savings for the $ 132 trillion global market for fund administration.
For Chainlink it is a justification. With CCIP that now flows Real-World Institutional Pilots and has contributed to the design of federal policy, the project increasingly seems to be as the connective tissue between Trandfi and in accordance with the financing of the chains.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 24, 2025 | Chainlink Legal Team Meet SEC Crypto Task Force |
| March 28, 2025 | Sergey Nazarov letters sec on cross-chain transfer agent model |
| May 12, 2025 | Sec tokenization round table atkins sets pro-blockchain-tone |
| May 15, 2025 | Division of Trading & Markets publishes Blockchain FAQ |
Bottom Line
After years of legal gridlock, the US has effectively punished the public block chains for use in securities infrastructure. Chainlink, already embedded with institutions and now with policy influence in Washington, seems to be positioned to become de facto middleware for the future of Tokenized Finance.