Bitwise Asks SEC To Protect Funds Relying On Token Status Filings

TL;DR: Bitwise filed a supplemental SEC comment seeking clearer protection for firms that rely on token-status filings. The October 21 letter develops its earlier proposal; it is an industry request, not an adopted rule.

Bitwise is pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission to answer a question that matters to fund managers: when can a firm rely on somebody else’s determination that a crypto asset has separated from an investment contract?

The asset manager’s October 21 supplemental letter focuses on that reliance problem in the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework.

It asks the commission to distinguish an issuer’s filing of Form TR from the point at which a separate market participant can rely on an unchallenged filing. It also seeks protection for reasonable, good-faith determinations if a later challenge arises, and asks for the treatment to carry through relevant investment-company and investment-adviser definitions.

Bitwise’s original October 19 response explains its position as a company that builds investment products using crypto assets rather than issuing those assets itself. Whether an asset could be treated as a security affects decisions about which products can hold it.

The practical concern is that a manager may need to make those decisions using public information, without access to all the records held by an issuer or development team.

A reliance framework would define when public filings can support that decision and what knowledge would prevent a firm from relying on them. That is distinct from declaring that any particular token is outside securities law.

The supplement also argues that filing Form TR should not itself be treated as an admission about the asset’s previous legal status. Its requests concern the consequences of using the proposed process, not simply the form’s availability.

The document is hosted in the SEC’s comment file, but its arguments belong to Bitwise. Publication there is not an endorsement by the commission.

The distinction is especially relevant to headlines about regulatory certainty. An industry participant can identify a problem and propose a detailed solution while the outcome remains undecided.

For fund managers, the issue to watch in the eventual rules is how responsibility is divided between the party making a token-status filing and the firms using it to construct financial products. Bitwise’s latest submission makes that division the center of its case.

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This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.