The Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a proposal to exempt certain digital asset offerings from securities registration statements, as the regulator moves ahead with crypto plans after landmark legislation stalled in Congress.

Offerings up to $5 million would be exempted for four years and offerings up to $75 million would be exempt for 12 months, according to an agency release. Issuers under the second exemption would be required to provide financial statements and meet ongoing reporting requirements, according to the more than 400-page proposed rule.

The proposal is “the commission’s answer to the question that has puzzled innovators since the birth of the blockchain: how can I raise capital to develop a crypto asset while I am still working to develop the network where it will be used,” SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in a post on X.

The agency said exemptions are meant to help companies at the startup and at the fundraising stages of their growth.

The proposed rule would also grant a safe harbor from the definition of “investment contract” under the securities laws once issuers have completed or ceased all essential managerial efforts that it promised to investors. That provision could make it easier for a digital asset to fall under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The SEC had planned to meet on the so-called “Regulation Crypto” proposal last week but then canceled that meeting. The agency was also expected to unveil its so-called innovation exemption for trading digital versions of securities around the same time. It is unclear if the SEC still plans to issue the exemption in the coming days or weeks.

A number of digital asset companies and other financial services industry leaders are expected to attend a meeting at the White House on Wednesday. That meeting comes after senators failed to pass crypto market structure legislation, known as the Clarity Act, before the August recess.

Ethics provisions have emerged as a major sticking point in the negotiations over the bill after President Donald Trump reported earning $1.4 billion from crypto and memecoin-related ventures in 2025.

“Given the progress made in Congress to date on market structure legislation, let me be clear up front: legislation remains indispensable to enacting ‘future-proofed’ rules of the road that are durable enough to protect the work we are undertaking today from being unwound by a future rogue regulator,” Atkins said in a separate statement on Tuesday.

— By Lydia Beyoud and Scott Patterson (Bloomberg News)