A joint 68-page ruling names XRP, Solana, Cardano, Chainlink and 12 others as digital commodities, not securities, under federal law.
The SEC and CFTC jointly finalized a 68-page interpretive release on March 17, classifying major crypto assets as digital commodities under federal law. The ruling carries full legal weight and settles years of regulatory uncertainty for projects including XRP, Solana, Cardano, and Chainlink.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission published a joint final rule on March 17 that classifies 16 crypto assets as digital commodities. The named tokens are Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Cardano, Chainlink, Avalanche, Polkadot, Stellar, Hedera, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Tezos, Bitcoin Cash, and Aptos.
The framework introduces a five-category taxonomy for crypto assets: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities. A token is classified as a security only when its issuer offers it as an investment in a common enterprise with promises of profits based on management efforts.
The ruling also clarifies that airdrops, protocol mining, protocol staking, and wrapping non-security crypto assets do not create securities transactions.
This is the first time both U.S. regulators have jointly issued binding definitions for how crypto assets are treated under federal law. The March 11 Memorandum of Understanding between the SEC and CFTC covered only Bitcoin and Ethereum. This ruling expands commodity status to 14 additional tokens.
For projects like XRP, which spent years fighting the SEC in court, the classification removes a major legal overhang. For the broader market, commodity status means these assets fall under CFTC jurisdiction rather than the stricter SEC securities regime. This unblocks the ETF pipeline, allows institutional custodians to hold these assets without securities registration, and permits exchanges to list them under commodity trading rules.
The staking clarification is particularly significant. It confirms that staking yield is not a securities transaction, opening the door for yield-bearing ETF products beyond the recently launched BlackRock ETHB.
The ruling does not cover all crypto assets. Tokens outside the 16 named commodities must still be evaluated individually. The CLARITY Act, which would codify a broader legislative framework, remains stalled in the Senate. Market participants are watching whether the commodity classification accelerates ETF filings for assets like Solana and XRP, with several applications already pending at the SEC.
The joint SEC-CFTC ruling marks the most significant regulatory clarity for crypto markets since the first Bitcoin ETF approvals. While legislative action on the CLARITY Act remains uncertain, the five-category framework gives market participants a binding legal foundation for the first time.
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Disclaimer: News content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Market conditions can change rapidly. Always conduct your own research.
