On September 4, 2025, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs published the semi-annual “Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” of the various federal agencies. The Unified Agenda includes the SEC’s Spring 2025 Current Agenda containing the following items from the Division of Investment Management, as well as the SEC’s current timing estimates. From other SEC Divisions, the Current Agenda also contains several crypto-related rulemakings, which are reproduced separately below. In many cases, the scope and substance of the rulemakings are ambiguous notwithstanding the description provided.
Observations
As described in a Ropes & Gray Alert, in June, the SEC issued a notice formally withdrawing certain proposed rulemakings issued in 2022 and 2023 under the prior administration. In a statement accompanying the release of the Current Agenda, Chairman Atkins explicitly noted that “[i]mportantly, the agenda reflects our withdrawal of a host of items from the last Administration that do not align with the goal that regulation should be smart, effective, and appropriately tailored within the confines of our statutory authority.”
We anticipate that the SEC under Chairman Atkins will continue to have a broad deregulatory orientation and, for the foreseeable future, will include crypto-related rulemakings.
Each of the rulemakings indicates that the SEC plans its next action to occur by April 1, 2026. In some instances, that date is likely to slip.
