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SEC Clarifies Status of Crypto Assets Under Federal Securities Laws, Signals Potential Exemptive and Safe Harbor Framework

By Tracy S. Combs, Barbara A. Jones, William Mack, Marina Olman-Pal, Erika Cabo & Douglas E. Arend on March 18, 2026
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On March 17, 2026, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an interpretive release addressing the application of the federal securities laws to crypto assets and related transactions. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) joined the interpretation and indicated it will administer the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) consistent with the SEC’s approach, reflecting a coordinated regulatory position across the two agencies.

The release represents the most significant step by the SEC to date in clarifying the application of existing federal securities law principles to crypto assets. In remarks delivered the same day at The Digital Chamber’s Blockchain Summit, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins outlined a potential framework – referred to as “Regulation Crypto Assets” – that could include tailored exemptions and a safe harbor for certain crypto-related offerings.

Link to Continue reading the full GT Alert. Continue reading the full GT Alert.

Photo of Tracy S. Combs Tracy S. Combs

Tracy serves as Co-Managing Shareholder of the Salt Lake City office. A former Regional Director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, she represents corporations, financial institutions, and individuals in a wide range of federal and state government investigations, litigation, and regulatory inquiries…

Tracy serves as Co-Managing Shareholder of the Salt Lake City office. A former Regional Director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, she represents corporations, financial institutions, and individuals in a wide range of federal and state government investigations, litigation, and regulatory inquiries nationwide, including those involving the SEC, the Department of Justice, and state Attorneys General. She also counsels clients in complex business disputes, tort litigation, and cybersecurity matters. As Utah Business Journal’s Legal Elite edition stated in 2025, Tracy can “navigate a wide range of legal situations and…easily handle a crisis for any client.”

Tracy joined GT after an eight-year tenure at the SEC, where she served in a variety of roles in San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Most recently, Tracy served as Director of the SEC’s Salt Lake Regional Office, where she oversaw some of its most high-profile cases. As a former SEC trial and investigative attorney in San Francisco, Tracy brought several groundbreaking enforcement actions, including the SEC’s first public company cybersecurity disclosure case and its first “shadow” insider trading case. Tracy served for three years in the Division of Enforcement’s former Cyber Unit, where she co-led its Cybersecurity & Regulated Entities group. In 2021 to 2022, Tracy served as counsel to the Director of Enforcement, advising on priority matters and coordinating with the SEC’s criminal and civil law enforcement partners nationwide.

Prior to her government service, Tracy was a litigator at a large law firm in Philadelphia and New York, with a focus on high-stakes white collar criminal matters, securities class actions, and complex commercial disputes, and clerked for the Honorable Luis Felipe Restrepo in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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Photo of Barbara A. Jones Barbara A. Jones

Barbara A. Jones is Co-Managing Shareholder of the firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the firm’s Global Corporate practice. Barbara serves as Chair of the firm’s interdisciplinary Blockchain & Digital Assets practice. Barbara maintains a diverse corporate and securities law practice

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Barbara A. Jones is Co-Managing Shareholder of the firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the firm’s Global Corporate practice. Barbara serves as Chair of the firm’s interdisciplinary Blockchain & Digital Assets practice. Barbara maintains a diverse corporate and securities law practice across industry groups, emphasizing complex international and domestic transactions, including private and public financings, dual listings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic collaborations and joint ventures, and licensing transactions. She serves as a trusted advisor to public and private company boards of directors on governance matters and complex regulatory reporting and compliance issues. Barbara’s clients include financial institutions, private equity and venture capital groups, and public and private companies in emerging technology, life sciences and biotechnology, defense and security, blockchain and digital assets, telecommunications, information technology, energy (traditional and renewable), mining, media, entertainment and sports. Barbara also represents Olympic and professional athletes and sports-related organizations.

Barbara practiced U.S. law in London from 1990 through 1997 with Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP, and headed the international capital markets practice of Kirkland & Ellis LLP from 1999 to 2003 before relocating to Boston. From 1997 to 1999, she served as Vice-President, Assistant General Counsel and Regional Counsel for capital markets with J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd. in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since returning to the U.S., she has continued to actively represent public and private companies, private equity groups and investment banks in the European, Scandinavian, African and greater Asian markets, including China.

Barbara is a past chair of the ABA’s Subcommittee on International Securities Matters. She is a frequent speaker at conferences relating to cross-border securities matters, strategic alternatives, and digital asset structures. She serves on the Government of Bermuda’s Global FinTech Advisory Board.

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Photo of William Mack William Mack

William B. Mack is a co-chair of the Financial Regulatory & Compliance Practice. He is experienced in advising companies on regulatory and compliance matters relating to the Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, the Exchange Act, Anti-Money Laundering laws and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

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William B. Mack is a co-chair of the Financial Regulatory & Compliance Practice. He is experienced in advising companies on regulatory and compliance matters relating to the Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, the Exchange Act, Anti-Money Laundering laws and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules.

William’s practice involves all aspects of broker-dealer regulation, including Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) membership, supervision, employment, research, soft dollar arrangements, chaperoning of foreign broker-dealers, social media, use of foreign finders, anti-money laundering rules, alternative trading systems (ATS), exchanges, and market making issues. He also provides regulatory guidance to investment banking clients in connection with securities offerings and related trading issues.

William advises firms in the FINRA new membership (NMA) and the continuing membership (CMA) processes. William assists firms to develop or amend their written supervisory procedures and compliance manuals.

William routinely represents clients who are negotiating placement agent agreements, foreign finders agreements, clearing agreements, agreements with registered representatives and expense-sharing agreements.

William assists broker-dealers and their associated persons to respond to regulatory examinations and inquiries and provides effective representation in a range of enforcement proceedings with the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, state and foreign regulatory authorities. He regularly prepares and defends witnesses in FINRA on-the-record interviews and SEC testimony. Enforcement matters have involved issues including market manipulation, supervision, customer defalcations, insider trading, anti-money laundering, distribution of unregistered securities, direct market access, market making, soft dollar arrangements, cross border trading, electronic intrusion and customer impersonation, sales practices, supervision, private placements, ETFs, indexes, and other securities products.

William regularly addresses questions with respect to what activities require or are exempt from broker-dealer registration. William assists firms in obtaining guidance, interpretive letters, and no-action relief from FINRA and the SEC with respect to novel securities issues and the creation of new products and services. William also advises clients on cryptocurrency, tokenization, NFTs, DeFi structures, and digital asset exchanges and trading.

Prior to joining the firm, William was a Principal Counsel for Enforcement at FINRA. Before FINRA, he was the Director of the Executive Secretariat in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. William also served as a Deputy Associate Counsel at the White House, advising primarily on appointments and investigations. Before the White House, he practiced at large firms in New York. William clerked for Judge Robert L. Carter in the Southern District of New York.

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Photo of Marina Olman-Pal Marina Olman-Pal

Marina Olman-Pal is a Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial Regulatory & Compliance Practice. She advises foreign and U.S. financial institutions on a broad range of U.S. federal and state regulatory and compliance matters including licensing/chartering, acquisitions, mergers, divestitures, third-party risk management and oversight…

Marina Olman-Pal is a Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial Regulatory & Compliance Practice. She advises foreign and U.S. financial institutions on a broad range of U.S. federal and state regulatory and compliance matters including licensing/chartering, acquisitions, mergers, divestitures, third-party risk management and oversight issues, BaaS and other bank/fintech-related matters, compliance with Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) laws and regulations, GENIUS Act and fair access law matters.

Marina counsels a wide range of companies in the financial services sector including, domestic and foreign banks, money services businesses including money transmitters, cryptocurrency businesses, Fintech companies, digital payment companies, and non-financial services companies considering new payment or digital wallet models. Throughout her career, Marina has represented clients before U.S. regulators such as the Federal Reserve, OCC, FDIC, FinCEN, OFAC, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation and other state supervisory authorities. Marina also regularly develops anti-money laundering programs for a wide range of financial services businesses and non-financial services businesses including, U.S. and foreign companies active in industries such as real estate, hospitality, automotive and artificial intelligence, among many others.

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Photo of Erika Cabo Erika Cabo

Erika Cabo focuses her practice on regulation, structuring, and compliance of, and transactions in, blockchain and digital assets, derivatives and complex structured products. She represents a diverse range of clients, including global blockchain technology companies, cryptocurrency exchanges, token sellers, cryptocurrency funds, broker-dealers, major

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Erika Cabo focuses her practice on regulation, structuring, and compliance of, and transactions in, blockchain and digital assets, derivatives and complex structured products. She represents a diverse range of clients, including global blockchain technology companies, cryptocurrency exchanges, token sellers, cryptocurrency funds, broker-dealers, major global investment banks and financial institutions. Erika advises on tokenization of real-world assets, blockchain-based capital markets transactions, blockchain token sales, and trading and investment in digital assets.

Erika engages with regulators and policymakers on behalf of clients, including representing blockchain platforms before the SEC’s Crypto Task Force and drafting comment letters on proposed SEC rules. She has represented technology companies in advanced policy initiatives such as the CLARITY Act and market structure bills, advocating for clear regulatory definitions and safe harbor frameworks to support responsible innovation in the digital asset space.

Erika counsels financial institutions, blockchain platforms, centralized and decentralized digital asset exchanges and technology companies on securities and commodities issues, custody rule requirements, broker-dealer matters and cross-border regulatory issues. She structures deals and negotiates U.S. and cross-border agreements involving digital assets and complex financial products and regularly helps clients navigate evolving federal and state securities and commodities laws and regulations.

In her derivatives practice, Erika advises on all aspects of derivatives and structured products transactions across the U.S. and Latin America, including regulatory strategy, compliance, negotiation, structuring and documentation. Erika advises both regulated entities and end users on Dodd-Frank Act and Commodity Exchange Act regulation and compliance, and on the structuring of innovative hedging, trading, and risk management solutions.

In a previous role, Erika practiced in the New York office of a global law firm, where she represented buy-side and sell-side financial institutions, corporates and technology companies in the U.S. and Latin America in derivatives trading, documentation, and regulatory matters. She also counseled technology companies on securities laws in the firm’s blockchain and digital assets practice. She is fluent in Spanish.

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Photo of Douglas E. Arend Douglas E. Arend

Doug Arend focuses his practice on commodity futures, derivatives and securities, with an emphasis on managed funds. He represents registered and exempt investment advisers, commodity pools and hedge funds, traditional proprietary trading firms, introducing brokers, futures commission merchants and broker-dealers. Doug has significant…

Doug Arend focuses his practice on commodity futures, derivatives and securities, with an emphasis on managed funds. He represents registered and exempt investment advisers, commodity pools and hedge funds, traditional proprietary trading firms, introducing brokers, futures commission merchants and broker-dealers. Doug has significant experience advising funded-trader proprietary trading firms regarding a wide variety of structuring and regulatory matters. He concentrates on complex transactional and regulatory matters, including public and private offerings, fund formation, business structuring, registration and compliance. His experience includes regulatory matters involving designated contract markets and derivatives clearing organizations, particularly in the area of prediction markets offering event contracts.

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  • Posted in:
    Banking, Finance and Securities
  • Blog:
    Financial Services Observer
  • Organization:
    Greenberg Traurig, LLP
  • Article: View Original Source

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