Request to the SEC
Representatives of a16z and the DeFi Education Fund sent a letter to SEC Commissioner and head of the agency’s crypto working group Hester Peirce. The document cites recommendations from the Digital Assets Working Group under the administration of US President Donald Trump, which had previously called for “exempting certain DeFi services from the provisions of the Securities Exchange Act.”
What the Industry Proposes
According to the authors of the letter, the “safe harbor” should only apply to projects that do not create the types of risks that the registration provisions were originally designed to address. In such cases, a16z and the DeFi Education Fund argue that registration under the Securities Exchange Act would be “inappropriate and redundant.”
The letter also states that creating a safe regulatory zone would “provide necessary clarity,” maintain SEC oversight of higher-risk products, and allow developers to operate in the US without fear that their projects will be classified under unsuitable legal categories.
The initiative follows a March letter from a16z to Peirce. At that time, the fund proposed introducing a “safe harbor” for NFTs and also recommended creating similar frameworks for airdrop projects and network tokens.
Classification of NFTs and Memecoins
In January 2025, David Sacks, who oversees crypto policy in the Trump administration, proposed classifying NFTs and memecoins as “collectible assets.” In an interview with Fox Business, he said that digital assets can fall into different legal categories: securities, commodities, or collectibles. In his view, NFTs and memecoins are closer to the latter.
“NFTs and memecoins are like baseball cards or postage stamps. People buy them to commemorate something,” Sacks explained.
He also clarified that this was his personal opinion and not the official position of the regulator.
NFT Market Dynamics
On August 13, amid the rise in Ethereum’s value, the non-fungible token market reached a capitalization of $9.3 billion. This is 40% more than in July, when, according to DappRadar, the total stood at $6.6 billion. The growth was accompanied by increased interest in collections issued on the main Ethereum network.
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