Hyperliquid Policy Center asks SEC for five crypto rule fixes

Hyperliquid Policy Center asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 19 to rework five parts of its proposed crypto offering rules, a plan that would let token projects raise up to $75 million a year without full securities registration.

In a comment letter it announced on X, the group said it backs the SEC's framework, named Regulation Crypto Assets, but that the draft leaves open questions for developers and token holders while a network is still being built.

What the SEC has proposed

The SEC published Regulation Crypto Assets on August 18, 2026. Chairman Paul Atkins said the rules would give crypto entrepreneurs clear ways to raise capital under federal securities law. Two registration exemptions anchor the plan. One covers a single raise of up to $5 million over four years. The second allows up to $75 million in any 12-month period, in return for financial statements and ongoing reports.

A conditional safe harbor sits alongside those exemptions. Once an issuer certifies it has finished, or permanently stopped, the managerial work it promised, the token stops counting as an investment contract under the law. State registration rules would also be preempted for those sales and for some later trades.

Behind the plan is a change that started in March 2026. That month the SEC set out how federal securities law applies to certain crypto assets, and it issued a joint reading with the CFTC on airdrops and staking. Regulation Crypto Assets would turn parts of that guidance into binding rules.

Its plan is one of two big US efforts this year. The CFTC has mapped out its own rulebook for crypto trading venues.

Five changes the group wants

Hyperliquid Policy Center backed the plan's direction but flagged gaps it says could trip up builders. Its letter lists five fixes.

First, airdrops. The group wants the SEC to write its current reading into the rule itself: tokens handed out for free generally are not an investment contract, because the recipient pays nothing. Routine steps like connecting a wallet or passing a sanctions check should not turn a giveaway into a securities sale, the letter says.

Second comes secondary trading. The group asked the SEC to spell out whether tokens sold under the new exemptions can later change hands on decentralized exchanges and through other middlemen. It pointed to the agency's own economic analysis, which warns that thin secondary markets would cut the framework's benefits.

A third request concerns the developer safe harbor. A project should be able to certify that its token was never sold as an investment contract without that statement implying it once was, the group argued. It also wants the safe harbor to apply while essential work on a network is still going on, not only after that work stops.

Then buybacks. Hyperliquid Policy Center asked the SEC to separate automated token repurchases, run by published code, from buybacks a central company chooses to make. The split matters for protocols that buy back or burn tokens through fixed on-chain rules.

Last, state law. Federal preemption of certain state registration rules should stay in force even after a project clears the safe harbor, the group said, so a mature token does not face a fresh round of state filings.

Why it matters now

Nothing has changed yet. A comment letter is a request, not a rule. The SEC has not agreed to any of the five changes, and staff can accept, drop or rewrite each one before anything is final.

Hyperliquid runs a blockchain built for on-chain trading, and the group said its buyback point bears on how that network works. It added that the filing does not mean any Hyperliquid token or program has won an exemption.

This push comes while the White House crypto adviser role sits vacant, leaving the SEC's rulemaking as the clearest near-term source of written crypto rules in the US.

What to watch

Public comments close October 20, which means the record on Regulation Crypto Assets is about to shut. After that, SEC staff review the filings and decide what, if anything, to carry into a final rule. Watch whether the agency writes its airdrop and buyback guidance into the text, as Hyperliquid Policy Center and others asked, or leaves those calls case by case. Token teams, airdrop programs and DeFi front ends would all take their cue from the final wording. Nothing is final yet, and no date has been set for a vote.