White House Starts Review of SEC Crypto Broker-Dealer Rule Draft

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent a draft rule on crypto assets to the White House regulatory review office, which logged it on Nov. 3. The federal review record lists the item as "Amendments to Broker-Dealer Financial Responsibility and Recordkeeping and Reporting Rules Regarding Crypto Assets" at the proposed rule stage, marks it economically significant and shows no legal deadline for action. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs sits inside the White House Office of Management and Budget and reviews draft federal rules before they are published. The record flags no impacts under the Affordable Care Act or the Dodd-Frank Act.

The draft carries the identifier RIN 3235-AN48. In the SEC's agenda entry for the same item, the agency's Division of Trading and Markets says it is "considering recommending that the Commission amend Rules 15c3-1 and 15c3-3 and other broker-dealer financial responsibility rules, as well as Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4, to address the application of these rules to crypto assets." The entry cites sections 15(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act as its legal authority and carries a timetable of July 2026 for a notice of proposed rulemaking.

All four rules already exist. Rule 15c3-1 is the net capital rule for brokers and dealers, Rule 15c3-3 is the customer protection rule covering reserves and the custody of securities, and Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 set which records firms must make and preserve, according to Unchained's report. Together they determine how much capital a brokerage holds, how it safeguards customer assets and what it records, so how they treat crypto shapes whether broker-dealers can carry tokens alongside stocks and bonds.

The proposal's text has not been released. Neither the review record nor the agenda entry spells out what the agency would change, so the filing confirms only that a draft exists and has left the SEC, not what it would require of firms. Unchained noted the same limit: until the agency publishes the text, the scope of the revision stays unknown. The agenda entry also leaves the major-rule determination and the required regulatory flexibility analysis marked as undetermined.

The review record itself sits in the Executive Order 12866 pipeline, the system OIRA uses to screen proposed rules from executive agencies before publication. The entry records international impacts as none and shows the item previously published in the Unified Agenda, meaning the rulemaking has been on the public agenda before this submission. The record page lists any meetings held under the order on this item and lets interested parties request a meeting with review staff, the standard route for outside input while a draft sits at OIRA. Because there is no legal deadline, the review has no fixed end date.

How the four rules would change matters to any firm that both holds tokens and runs as a broker-dealer. Rule 15c3-3 requires reserves and custody arrangements for customer securities, and Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 govern the records firms create and keep, so an amendment touching crypto would shape the capital, custody and paperwork duties that apply to broker-dealers carrying digital assets alongside traditional ones. The agenda entry does not say whether the SEC proposes to treat tokens as securities, cash equivalents or a separate category inside those rules.

The review follows an Oct. 1 SEC proposal of a custody framework for crypto held by registered investment advisers and regulated funds, which would also allow state trust companies to act as custodians, Unchained reported. In September, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the agency would write crypto rules under its existing authority, with or without new legislation, after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate, the same report said.

The review record shows no legal deadline for OIRA to finish its work on the broker-dealer draft.