Crypto’s Heavyweights Push SEC to Put Digital Commodity Definition in Binding Rules

Six major blockchain foundations — the teams behind Chainlink, Hedera, Aptos, Avalanche, Stellar, and Cardano — have jointly petitioned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to convert its March classification framework into enforceable law. The request could redefine the regulatory ground beneath the entire American crypto market.

A Petition That Could Reshape U.S. Crypto Oversight

A coalition of six of the most recognizable names in digital assets has formally asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to stop leaning on interpretive guidance and instead write its crypto classification approach into binding, enforceable regulations. The joint letter, submitted by the foundations and corporate entities behind Chainlink, Hedera, Aptos, Avalanche, Stellar, and Cardano, urges the agency to codify the framework it published in March — a procedural step that would turn a flexible policy document into a durable legal cornerstone for the digital asset industry. The timing is hardly coincidental. The SEC has spent the past year recalibrating its posture toward crypto, establishing an internal task force aimed at making sense of the sector and scaling back some of the more aggressive enforcement campaigns that characterized earlier leadership. Yet for all that procedural movement, the agency has produced strikingly few formal rules, and the fundamental uncertainty that has haunted the market since the first token sales of the mid-2010s remains largely untouched. Together, these six ecosystems represent a meaningful cross-section of the global blockchain economy, spanning oracle networks, high-throughput smart-contract platforms, enterprise-grade distributed ledgers, and cross-border payment rails. Their decision to unite behind a single regulatory demand underscores a growing frustration shared across the sector: after years of subpoenas, lawsuits, and cautious legal memoranda, even the most scrupulously compliant projects cannot say with confidence whether the tokens they build and support will ultimately be treated as commodities, securities, or some third legal creature yet to be named. The letter is, in effect, the industry’s most organized argument yet for a simple proposition — that clarity, not leniency, is what the American crypto market needs most.

Why Interpretive Guidance No Longer Feels Like Enough

The request centers on a document released by the SEC in March that laid out an analytical framework for distinguishing crypto assets that function as digital commodities from those that fall within the agency’s securities remit. Industry lawyers largely welcomed the release as a pragmatic acknowledgment of crypto’s unique properties, but the petitioners argue that such guidance, however thoughtfully drafted, does not carry the legal weight of a formal rule. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, interpretive releases and staff statements are persuasive at best; they do not bind the agency, and they can be narrowed, reversed, or abandoned entirely without public notice or comment. In a market defined by volatility and existential legal risk, that is a fatal flaw. A future SEC panel, a shift in the political winds, or simply a newly appointed director with a different worldview could sweep the entire framework away overnight. By demanding that the March classification criteria be written into the Code of Federal Regulations, the six organizations are asking the agency to bind itself and its successors — to make the current intellectual framework part of the permanent architecture of American financial law. That, the letter contends, is the only way to replace a decade of ad hoc enforcement, settlement-driven precedent, and shifting public statements with a foundation on which business models can actually be built.

The Core Legal Argument: An Asset Is Not a Contract

At the heart of the petition lies a legal distinction that has come to define every significant crypto courtroom battle in the United States. The organizations argue that a crypto asset being the subject of an investment contract should not, in itself, transform that asset into a security. The nuance may sound academic, but the consequences are anything but. Under the Howey Test, a security exists when investors purchase an asset with an expectation of profits derived from the efforts of others — a standard that has been stretched and reinterpreted by the SEC to encompass everything from real-estate schemes to pooled animal contracts over the years. But digital assets complicate the analogy in ways the original 1946 Supreme Court decision never contemplated. A token can be sold initially through something that looks like an investment contract, then later traded on an open market as a governance token, a protocol resource, or a payment utility. The key insight, endorsed by several federal judges in recent high-profile decisions, is that the arrangement under which a token is sold is not the same as the token itself. Just as a share of stock remains a security regardless of how it is traded, a digital commodity does not magically transform into a security merely because its initial sale was accompanied by promises of future platform development. The petition wants that principle codified — so that exchanges, decentralized applications, and token holders can operate without fear that a single distribution event from years ago will haunt the asset’s status forever.

Drawing the Line Between the SEC and the CFTC

The petition does not stop at distinguishing assets from contracts. It also asks the SEC to state explicitly that any new rule will not alter existing cryptocurrency classifications or shift the boundary between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That boundary has been a source of confusion almost as long as crypto assets have existed, with the two agencies staking overlapping claims to jurisdiction over the same tokens. The SEC has historically asserted authority over any asset it deems to be a security, while the CFTC has taken the position that digital commodities like bitcoin and ether fall under its own statutory mandate. Federal courts have added to the complexity, ruling in some instances that certain tokens are commodities and in others that the same types of assets can be investment contracts in certain contexts. The result is a patchwork of overlapping authority that forces market participants to run every transaction through a maze of contradictory legal theories. The petitioners want the SEC to expressly promise that its new rule will not be a jurisdictional land grab — that it will neither reclassify assets already deemed commodities nor expand the SEC’s territory at the expense of the CFTC. In essence, they are asking the agency to map the line between two regulators before it starts enforcing the law on either side of it. That request arrives at a particularly delicate moment, as Congress continues to debate market-structure legislation that would draw a similar boundary and has so far failed to reach consensus.

What a Binding Rule Would Mean for Six Major Networks

For the specific ecosystems behind the petition, the practical stakes are immediate. Chainlink operates a decentralized oracle network that feeds trusted data into thousands of blockchain applications, positioning itself as infrastructure rather than a speculative asset. Hedera has courted enterprise clients with a high-speed, energy-efficient distributed ledger designed for institutional workloads. Aptos and Avalanche are competing in the crowded smart-contract platform market, each offering a distinct vision of scalability, security, and developer experience. Stellar has focused on cross-border payments and financial inclusion, building rails to connect central banks, payment providers, and unbanked communities. Cardano, meanwhile, has built its reputation on academic peer review and a research-driven approach to blockchain development. Each of these projects has spent years navigating the SEC’s unpredictable posture, often restructuring token design, disclosure practices, and U.S. market access to stay out of enforcement crosshairs. A formal rule clarifying that a token is not itself a security would provide immediate relief across the board: exchanges could list tokens with greater confidence, custodians and market makers could commit capital without the threat of facilitating unregistered securities trading, and node operators could participate in governance with a clearer understanding of their legal exposure. It would also open the door to deeper institutional involvement, which has been slow to arrive precisely because of legal ambiguity.

A Long Road Ahead as the SEC Weighs Its Answer

Whether the SEC will honor the request remains an open question, and even a favorable answer would not produce changes overnight. Formal rulemaking is a laborious process: the agency would need to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking, invite public comment, review submissions from hundreds of interested parties, and finalize a text that could still be challenged in court by either a disappointed industry group or a stateside watchdog organization. Depending on the leadership’s appetite for rulemaking — and the broader political environment — that process could stretch on for years. In the meantime, the crypto market will continue to be buffeted by court rulings, congressional negotiations, and the occasional surprise enforcement action. Yet the very existence of this letter marks a significant evolution in the industry’s relationship with its regulators. Instead of fighting the SEC case by case, the major networks are now actively participating in the construction of the legal framework that will govern them, putting their arguments in writing and pushing the agency to commit. The move mirrors a broader global trend: Europe has already moved forward with its Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, and several Asian jurisdictions have implemented licensing regimes that offer at least a degree of predictability. The United States, meanwhile, remains a land of contested definitions and shifting theories. Whatever the SEC ultimately decides, this petition is a signal that the era of silent compliance is over — and that the largest players in crypto intend to have a seat at the table when the rules are finally written.

This article does not constitute investment advice.