The ICO Vote Passed... Now the Clock Starts

Last week, I wrote to you about the impending resurgence of the initial coin offering (ICO) that perhaps we were on the brink of the ICO being BACK!

But this time around, in a more refined and responsible way.

That would be a good thing because while 2017 and 2018 was fun, it was utterly and insanely wild.

Big money made, big money lost, big frauds, and a heck of a lot of investor risk.

So, a more refined and sophisticated ICO summer would be much welcomed from this veteran campaigner!

Good news is that yesterday, we got a step closer to that reality.

The SEC held a vote on ‘Regulation Crypto Assets,’ and it passed.

The ICO is back.

Officially, formally, on SEC letterhead, press release 2026-76 if you want the paper trail.[1]

Everything I took you through last week made the cut.

• The startup exemption of roughly $5 million over four years.

• The fundraising exemption of up to $75 million in any 12 months, with financials filed at the Commission.

• And the safe harbor that ends the investment contract once the team delivers the work it promised.

I’ll come back to that last one, because I’ve now read the details and I think it’s the sleeper of the whole proposal. Such is the significance of this, I’m going to write more about it tomorrow.

Actually, this all may end up as a far bigger deal than the CLARITY Act ends up. Dare I say, screw CLARITY, we’ve now got the platform for 2027 to be the ICO boom a decade after the first time around.

What I like about what the SEC has done here is they’ve looked ahead and not behind.

The proposal overrides state securities registration and qualification requirements for these ICO offerings, and for certain secondary market trades too.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, U.S. securities offerings don’t just answer to the SEC.

They answer to ‘blue sky’ laws in all 50 states. Fifty regulators, 50 filing regimes, 50 chances for someone to stuff up everything.

Can you imagine the stress and strain this would have on a tiny start-up crypto project that just wants to launch into the market. The American spirit of entrepreneurship hammered down by state regs and red tape.

Well, the SEC has said, stuff that up your sweater and bin it.

For new token offerings under this regime, the states are out. Just one rulebook, the federal, done and done.

That’s the kind of practical common sense that decides whether founders actually use these rules or keep incorporating in the Caymans or Malta like they have for the past decade.

The second thing is what the SEC has actually said.

I’d go as far as saying the SEC has never sounded this, well, this reasonable in its 92-year history.

Commissioner Uyeda described the old approach as handing good-faith builders ‘a bureaucratic runaround,’ with ‘subpoenas and litigation rather than answers.’[2]

Hester Peirce, who has carried this fight longer than anyone else has, ‘Rules should be written so that well-intentioned people can follow them without having to abandon legitimate pursuits.’[3]

And Atkins summed it up better than any regulator has previously, ‘minimum effective dose, maximum freedom to build, and durable clarity.’[4]

See… we’ve got clarity without CLARITY.

Five years ago, the SEC was a junk pile of litigation against crypto.

Now the Chairman is talking about freedom to build.

I’m the first to hate on a regulator, but this is genuinely useful.

Ok, reality check. What passed on Tuesday is a proposal, and once it lands in the Federal Register, a 60-day public comment window opens.

Then redrafts, then another vote on a final rule.

Months at best, but still also with CLARITY meandering through Congress in the background. But I think, regardless of if the CLARITY Act gets passed, these ICO frameworks are good to go. I don’t see objection coming here.

Also worth noting, the ICO exemptions might not even be the biggest prize of the last 24 hours.

That would be the safe harbor, a vital piece of the crypto puzzle that challenges the most antiquated rule of securities that’s ever existed and answers the question when does a token stop being a security?

Tomorrow, I’ll step you through the answer the SEC has proposed, and why it changes how you should think about every token you own.

Trust in crypto,
Adam Atlantic

[1] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026-76-sec-proposes-new-regulation-crypto-assets

[2] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/uyeda-statement-regulation-crypto-assets-081826

[3] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-statement-regulation-crypto-assets-081826

[4] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-statement-regulation-crypto-assets-081826