After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) identified four broad categories of digital assets that typically fall outside securities laws, Chair Paul Atkins clarified why nonfungible tokens (NFTs) generally are not treated as securities.
In a CNBC interview, Atkins reiterated that the agency’s recent interpretive release outlines four types of digital assets that are usually not considered securities: digital commodities, digital tools, digital collectibles (including NFTs), and stablecoins. Host Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed him on digital collectibles, suggesting some structures could resemble securities.
Atkins responded that any determination depends on the facts and circumstances, centering on whether an asset involves an investment contract under long-standing legal tests. He said digital collectibles are generally treated like physical collectibles—items that are bought and held—rather than investment contracts, the hallmark of securities.
“Some of these collectibles, like a baseball card, a meme or one of those memecoins, NFTs — those are something that somebody buys,” Atkins said. “It’s an immutable purchase… it’s not something like another asset where people are trading it.”
Atkins has pushed the SEC away from an enforcement-led approach to digital assets, saying the agency is “breaking with the past” to provide clearer guidance and a more predictable framework for the sector. He criticized prior reliance on regulation through enforcement and has advocated supporting tokenization as an innovation regulators should enable rather than unduly restrict.
Atkins has warned that past regulatory missteps left the United States behind in crypto development by as much as a decade and has pledged to reverse that trend, aiming for clearer rules and less uncertainty for market participants.