In March 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) successively concluded its investigation into Web3 gaming giants Immutable and Crypto.com. What the two companies have in common is that they have received a "Wells" notice from the SEC - which means they may face prosecution, but now the alarm is lifted and eventually ends with "no charges."

Immutable bluntly stated that this is "a clear regulatory progress", and the pace of "progress" has changed the fate of the crypto companies that were previously targeted by the SEC. Previously, the SEC had reached a settlement agreement with Ripple to refund a $75 million fine, putting an end to the three-year legal battle. After the SEC canceled the lawsuit against Coinbase, the share price of the US-listed exchange soared, and the number of compliant tokens launched in two weeks increased by three times.

This series of actions is in sharp contrast to the style of former SEC chairman Gary Gensler's "replace supervision with law enforcement." Several incidents seem to be isolated, but in fact they unveiled the prelude to the shift of SEC's regulatory strategy - from the confrontational logic of "law enforcement is supervision" to the collaborative framework of "rule guidance", a series of meetings related to regulatory rules are already on the way.

What drives this change is the reconstruction of Washington's power territory. Trump's re-in power pushes crypto to a historical turning point: Bitcoin is included in its strategic reserves, National Bank is allowed to custody crypto assets, the GENIUS Stablecoin Act puts a compliant grid for the industry; Paul Atkins, who holds a crypto-friendly stance, was nominated for the new SEC chairman by Trump.

The loosening allowed the keen crypto market to smell opportunities. Traditional financial institutions such as Franklin Templeton and VanEck have also rushed to apply for spot ETFs for crypto assets such as SOL. The wave of institutionalization is reshaping the structure of the crypto market at a speed visible to the naked eye.

SEC "loosens" the crypto companies just finished the first quarter in 2025. The US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regulatory style in the crypto field has quietly changed - from tough law enforcement to prudent balance, and this transformation has gradually become clear through a series of landmark events.

On March 25, the US SEC officially ended its 17-month investigation into Australian Web3 gaming giant Immutable. The SEC confirmed that its IMX tokens did not violate the Securities Act in 2021. This game began in 20241The investigation of the "Wells Notice" (SEC Law Enforcement Action Warning Notice) in January was finally concluded with the "no charges to close the case."

Ferguson's statement on X

Immutable President Robbie Ferguson bluntly stated that "this move brings regulatory clarity to the Web3 gaming industry and is expected to drive more institutional investment."

Immutable is not only benefiting from "loosening". On March 26, the SEC agreed to refund $75 million of the $125 million fines against Ripple that the court ruled last year, leaving only $50 million to close the case. This legal tug-of-war that lasted for many years ended with a compromise plan, retaining regulatory authority and sending out signals of easing. In fact, since the beginning of the year, the SEC has intensively terminated several controversial investigations, targeting a long list of crypto companies including Robinhood, OpenSea, and Yuga Labs. The result is that the investigation was either revoked or suspended.

In February, the SEC revoked the additional penalties for Kraken's "staking as a service" business (the SEC reserved the right to hold the accountability after the exchange paid $30 million in 2023); in March, it reached a settlement with an anonymous DeFi agreement, requiring it to register some functions and pay a small fine; even in the field of privacy tools, the SEC gave up the securities law allegations against Tornado Cash developers and instead collaborated with the Ministry of Finance to formulate a technical neutral regulatory plan.

During the same period, the SEC canceled its lawsuit against Coinbase, pushing its stock price to soar 4% in the early trading. The market responded sharply, and the issuance of compliant tokens surged within two weeks after the Coinbase lawsuit was revoked. According to data from analytics company Kaiko, Coinbase added 10 new tokens in February, while in 2023, an average of 2.3 new tokens per month and an average of 3.4 new tokens per month in 2024.

The deep changes in regulatory logic are more reflected in the redefinition of emerging fields. In December 2024, the SEC revoked lawsuits against NFT projects such as Impact Theory and Stoner Cats, and only retained Pang, who had clearly promised returns.Accountability for the project in 2025, the SEC ended its investigation into cases related to the speech of former executive Hinman "Ethereum Non-Securities", avoiding new rulings on ETH attributes and retaining flexibility for token classification.

Behind a series of actions is the SEC's strategic transformation from "law enforcement, supervision" to "rule guidance".

On January 21 this year, the SEC formed a cryptocurrency task force led by the committee's acting chairman Mark T. Uyeda, and tried to listen to the advice of industry and experts, aiming to help the SEC draw up a clear regulatory route, provide practical registration pathways to develop a reasonable disclosure framework, and deploy law enforcement resources wisely. On March 21, the working group had already discussed key areas of cryptocurrency regulation on the topic of "defining security". Troy Paredes, founder of consulting firm Paredes Strategies LLC, chaired the roundtable. The experts invited to participate in the discussion mainly came from leaders and related scholars of legal, financial, and venture capital companies involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency asset industries, many of whom had worked at the SEC. Hester M. Peirce, head of the Cryptocurrency Working Group at SEC, said, “The Cryptocurrency Working Group Roundtable provides us with an opportunity to hear experts discuss regulatory issues and what measures the committee can do to address them.” Various crypto asset spot ETFs are on the way.

With Donald Trump's re-elected president of the United States, "Bitcoin" has once again entered the public eye with hot words, and the Trump 2.0 era vows to establish more certain crypto regulations.

The president of the "second entry into the palace" changed his previous skepticism about cryptocurrencies and signed an executive order to "establish a strategic reserve of Bitcoin" in early 2025, claiming that he would convert the confiscated assets into digital asset inventory.

At the same time, the US Congress promoted the GENIUS Stable Coin Act, requiring stablecoins100% reserve assets and provide a combined scale board for in-game payment tokens, abolishing the SAB 121 accounting standards that hinder traditional financial institutions from custodying crypto assets, and allowing national banks to participate in node verification and asset custody.

Trump's personnel layout is also further strengthening the shift in encryption.

In January this year, Trump nominated Paul Atkins as the new SEC chairman. Atkins, who has long advocated guiding the industry by developing clear regulatory rules rather than relying on litigation, criticized the SEC for adopting a "law enforcement-as-regulation" strategy against the crypto industry during his tenure as a member of the SEC, believes that this practice creates uncertainty and hinders innovation.

The regulatory loosening advocated by Mark T. Uyeda, as acting chairman, is consistent with Atkins' crypto-friendly position. For example, Uyeda terminated the lawsuit against Kraken and Coinbase during the period of former Chairman Gary Gensler. During the nomination confirmation process of Atkins, acting chairman Mark Uyeda has promoted a number of adjustments, including the establishment of a cryptocurrency working group led by "crypto mom" Hester Peirce, focusing on changing from "catching violations" to "setting rules."

From the president to the SEC chairman, people have changed, and the United States' administrative attitude towards the crypto industry has also changed, and "regulatory easing" and "accelerating construction" have been staged at the same time.

After Bitcoin (BTC) spot ETF and Ethereum (ETH) spot ETF, various crypto assets such as Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) have also entered the ETF application sequence. Ripple CEO said that the XRP ETF may be implemented in 2025. Traditional financial institutions are moving, and veteran asset management companies such as Franklin Templeton and VanEck are rushing to the ground.

On March 12, 2025, Franklin Templeton submitted a spot SOL ETF application, becoming the first traditional asset management giant to enter the Solana ETF. In addition to SOL, the company has also applied for Polkadot (DOT) ETF. On March 25, 2025, the Chicago Options Exchange (CBOE) submitted a 19b-4 application document for spot SOL ETF to the SEC on behalf of Fidelity, and plans to be listed on the BZX Exchange.

Greyscale plans to convert its Solana Trust Fund into spotETF, if approved, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the code GSOL, and the application has now entered the SEC review stage. In addition, many companies such as VanEck, 21Shares, Bitwise, Canary Capital, etc. have submitted applications. The market expects that the probability of SOL ETF being approved in 2025 is more than 70%.

Avalanche (AVAX) has also entered the ETF application bank. In March 2025, VanEck submitted the S-1 application document for the Avalanche spot ETF. The SEC has not yet accepted the opinion publicly, but the market speculates that its approval rhythm may refer to the SOL ETF, and it is expected that the second half of 2025 will enter a critical review period.

SEC, which has the power of investigating, punishing and civil litigation in the field of securities regulatory, has begun to show a friendly face towards crypto assets, and settled the legacy of the previous leader by reconciling, withdrawing or termination and suspending the investigation. It also plans to hold a meeting this year to specifically discuss crypto assets market supervision.

SEC will hold four roundtables in the first half of the year to discuss crypto asset supervision

According to the official SEC news, four roundtables will be held in April, May and June this year to discuss crypto asset supervision. The theme of the conference involves special supervision, cryptocurrency custody, on-chain transfer of tokenized assets and DeFi. Each roundtable will be open to the public at the SEC headquarters and will be broadcast live on SEC.gov.

With the United States loosening its intensive entry of traditional financial institutions, crypto assets have moved from "edge experiments" to the historical turning point of "mainstream introduction", and an era of dynamic balance of "regulation and innovation" is beginning.