SEC Chairman Explains Why NFTs Are Not Securities
After the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) outlined four broad categories of digital assets that fall outside the securities rules, Chairman Paul Atkins further clarified why non-fungible tokens (NFTs) generally do not meet that definition.
In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Atkins reiterated that the agency's latest regulatory release identified four types of digital assets that are not typically considered securities: digital products, digital instruments, digital collectibles such as NFTs and stablecoins.
During the interview, host Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed Atkins on the digital sets, suggesting that they could easily mimic security based on their structure.
“Well, that's true of anything,” Atkins replied, emphasizing that the SEC's analysis still depends on the facts and circumstances of each asset, especially when it involves an investment contract based on long-term legal precedent.
According to Atkins, digital collections are generally bought and held as goods, like physical collections, not as investment contracts – the nature of securities disclosures.
“Some of these collectibles, like a baseball card, a meme, or one of these memecoins, NFTs — those are things that someone would buy,” he said. “It's an immutable purchase … it's not like any other asset that people trade.”
Related: SEC Chairman Paul Atkins Floats ‘Safe Harbor' Exemptions for Crypto
The SEC continues to move away from executive-led crypto policy.
The securities regulator has overhauled its approach to digital assets under Atkins, a change linked to the arrival of a more crypto-friendly Trump administration in early 2025.
During a CNBC interview, Atkins described the SEC's push for clearer guidance and a more predictable regulatory framework for the digital asset sector.
Last year, Atkins criticized the agency's past reliance on “rule enforcement” and vowed to move away from that approach. He pointed to tokenization as a key innovation that regulators should support rather than restrict.
Since then, he has repeatedly said that past regulatory mistakes have caused the United States to lag behind in crypto development by nearly a decade, and he has vowed to reverse that trend.
Related: CFTC issues ‘no-action' letter to crypto wallet provider Phantom
