SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission is the US regulator whose position on whether a digital asset is a security has shaped more of the industry’s structure than any other single body. Its enforcement actions, approvals and rulemaking set what can be offered to American investors and by whom. Nearly everything it does arrives as a public document, which makes this among the most checkable coverage on the site.

What we track on this desk

• Enforcement. Complaints, settlements and judgments, linked to the filing wherever one exists.
• Approvals. Exchange-traded products, notably spot ETFs, and the delay-and-comment cycle that precedes them.
• Rulemaking. Proposals, comment periods and final rules covering custody, disclosure and market structure.
• Registration. Which venues and issuers have registered, and which are operating without doing so.
• Litigation outcomes. Court decisions that constrain or expand the Commission’s own reach.

How to read an SEC story here

A complaint is an allegation. It is written by one side, it is designed to persuade, and reporting it as established fact is the most common error in this category. Our coverage says who filed what and what has actually been decided, which is frequently nothing yet.

Settlements are the second trap: most conclude without any admission of wrongdoing, so “SEC finds X” is usually wrong where “X settles with SEC” is right. And a judgment binds the court that issued it — a district ruling is not national law, however it is headlined. Where publishers characterise a decision’s reach differently the story carries a Disputed label.

Where to go next

See the Regulation desk for the wider policy picture, or the Verification Center for how publishers are counted.