SEC sends crypto custody rewrite to White House, pointing to lighter standards

The SEC sent its crypto custody rule rewrite to the White House on Tuesday. The proposal, called Amendments to the Custody Rules, reached the OMB on August 25. The text remains secret. The OMB record carries an economically significant label for rules with at least $100 million in yearly economic impact. The record also places the filing in the deregulatory column under Executive Order 14192. President Donald Trump signed the order in January 2025. The order tells agencies to scrap ten rules for every new rule they write. The filing indicates that the SEC plans to loosen crypto custody duties rather than tighten them. The agenda abstract names crypto assets directly. The abstract targets a formal proposal for October. That step would open a public comment period. Current rules require advisers to place client assets with a qualified custodian, usually a bank or broker-dealer. Few of those firms would handle crypto, leaving advisers with almost no compliant way to hold it. Former Chair Gary Gensler's 2023 Safeguarding Rule would have expanded custody duties. The SEC withdrew that plan in June 2025. Andreessen Horowitz asked the SEC to modernize crypto custody rules. Lawyers from Delphi Ventures and Multicoin Capital sent the SEC a custody framework in December 2025. The framework asks for permission to use multi-signature and multi-party computation wallets. These tools divide key control so that no single party can move the assets. The custody filing arrived one week after the SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets. That proposal would create a token fundraising regime. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the regime seeks to provide pathways for raising capital under federal securities laws. The House passed the Clarity Act by 294-134 in July 2025. The bill would divide crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC. The bill has remained in the Senate and faces a 60-vote test around September 15. The filing arrived three weeks before that vote. The article says the bill's passage odds remain shaky. The next signals will be how long the OMB holds the rule and which firms request meetings while the text remains sealed.