The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has led Everstake, considered one of the most important non-customer-specific providers worldwide, to look at clearer regulatory definitions for setting in blockchain networks.
The meeting, during which the SEC crypto-task force was also involved, takes place at a time when digital assets over $ 193 billion are set in crucial networks (proof-of-stake).
Despite the large participation, the discontinuation stays in a legal gray area within the United States, for the reason that supervisory authorities struggle with its classification in response to the prevailing securities law.
The previous SEC management also took assertors akin to octopuses, coin base and consensus on account of their accounting services. The agency under the Pro crypto President Donald Trump recently dismissed these enforcement measures.
During the meeting, Everstake announced the SEC that non-customer-specific setting mustn’t be classified as a securities transaction. The company said that users keep full control over their digital assets during your complete setting process and that ownership doesn’t transfer property to a 3rd party.
They argued that this does a technical function and no investment product.
“Our fundamental statement is that the stacking just isn’t a financial instrument or a security transaction, but a technical process, a basic class protocol mechanism-a oracle in a database that maintains the integrity and functionality of decentralized networks,” said Everstake founder Sergii Vasylchuk in comparison with Cintelegraph.
Everstake team meet the sec. Source: Everstake
Everstake calls for the clarity of regulatory clarity
In a letter that was submitted to the SEC crypto-task force on April 8, 2025, Everstake asked the agency to increase regulatory clarity to non-customer-specific settings in addition to the executive models and liquidated models.
Everstake argued within the letter that got here in response to the decision from Commissioner Hester Peirces after entering the regulatory treatment of blockchain services that non-customer-specific furnishings mustn’t be considered securities offers.
It was claimed that this doesn’t create a customer -specific manner during which users keep control of their tokens, neither the bundling of assets nor the expectation of profits from management efforts.
In his model, Everstake said that users only delegate validation rights and at the identical time maintain ownership of their digital assets. The settings are distributed algorithmically by the blockchain network itself, and the corporate only offers a technical infrastructure.
The non-customer setting fails the Howey test
The letter also describes why the non-customer-specific adjustment fails every tine of the Howey test. Users don’t earn money investment in a joint company, don’t expect profits from Everstakes' efforts and are usually not depending on the management of the corporate for financial returns.
Instead, rewards come from incentives on the network level and fluctuate with the market value of the underlying assets.
Everstake proposes specific criteria that ought to be free of the classification of securities. This includes control of the user system, the shortage of pooled agents, without permission and provision of purely technical services.
It compares the non-customer use with the mining of proof-of-work, which the SEC previously excluded as a securities transaction.
Margaret Rosenfeld, Chief Legal Officer from Everstake, also said CoinTelegraph that “with non-customer-specific setup there isn’t any transfer of assets, no investment contract and no risk of third-party providers”. She added:
“If you treat it as a securities that the decentralized model offers, it undermines it and risks to chill down the innovation within the blockchain sector.”
Nevertheless, the SEC has to date held a final attitude. Rosenfeld said that the agency had no “specific obligations” for submitting instructions. However, it continues to take heed to the industry's interest groups.
“The Task Force is actively involved with quite a few stakeholders-in one one that is involved with non-customer stakers, ETFs and a wider blockchain infrastructure to gather input.”
In a letter dated April 30 to the Sec, almost 30 crypto lawyer groups, which were opened up by the lobby group, the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI), the agency for clear regulatory instructions for organising crypto and plug -in services.