By: Gena Dirani
U.S. digital-asset regulation is undergoing a meaningful reset. After years of “regulation by enforcement,” the SEC and DOJ are signaling a pivot toward clearer rules, early engagement, and enforcement actions focused on fraud and investor harm rather than technical missteps. The SEC’s Fall 2025 agenda make custody, trading, and issuance of digital assets explicit priorities, while the DOJ has emphasized targeting fraud, theft, hacking, and market manipulation – not intermediaries for the actions of their users.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins has been explicit about this shift. In a recent interview, he said the Commission should not “bash down the door” of companies over technical violations but instead issue warnings and allow remediation. Speaking at the September Roundtable on Global Financial Markets, Atkins went further: “Today, we must admit that crypto’s time has come. For too long the SEC has weaponized its investigatory, subpoena, and enforcement authorities to subvert the crypto markets.”
Atkins has also placed digital assets squarely at the center of the SEC’s regulatory agenda. “Crypto is job No. 1 right now,” he told reporters after a joint meeting between the SEC and CFTC leadership. That meeting highlighted areas where the two regulators are working toward harmonization. “We just want to make sure that the rule books are in sync, that we don’t have any risk of arbitrage between the two systems,” Atkins said.
Importantly, enforcement has not disappeared. The SEC continues to pursue fraud-driven cases, including charges this year against a digital-asset manager for misrepresenting token reserves, an exchange for undisclosed conflicts in routing customer orders, and a stablecoin issuer accused of misleading investors about asset backing. These actions show that while the tone has softened, investor protection remains paramount.
For RIAs, the implications are direct. Institutional allocators will only deploy meaningful capital into crypto if compliance frameworks meet traditional expectations. Custody safeguards, robust valuation policies, accurate disclosures, and strong vendor oversight are now prerequisites for attracting investor confidence.
Key compliance areas for RIAs:
- Custody: Ensure proper segregation of assets, audit rights, and contractual protections. Document why the chosen custody model meets the adviser’s fiduciary duties. (The SEC’s agenda specifically highlights custody as a rulemaking priority.)
- Valuation: Document and defend methodologies for illiquid or tokenized assets to support NAVs and reporting, including independent inputs, frequency of re-pricing, and governance. Institutional allocators will scrutinize valuation methodologies before allocating.
- Vendor Oversight: Strengthen contracts with custodians, exchanges, and wallet providers to include audit and breach-notification rights. The ability to obtain prompt incident details from vendors will be critical if a regulator or investor asks for evidence of oversight.
- Disclosure: Maintain accuracy and consistency across marketing, Form ADV Part 2A and offering documents, particularly around token backing, performance, risks and conflicts.
- AML & KYC: Accelerate AML, KYC, and transaction-monitoring readiness. Even where federal priorities shift, anti-money-laundering obligations and FinCEN rulemaking remain material risks for advisers; robust systems will be a gating factor for counterparties and institutional allocators.
Under Atkins, the SEC is signaling a more measured approach, but not a retreat. For RIAs, this is a chance to build durable compliance programs that not only meet regulatory expectations but also unlock institutional trust and capital flow into digital assets.