The story of cryptocurrency custody in the United States has officially reached the doorstep of the White House. On September 23, 2026, during the CoinDesk Policy & Regulation event in Washington, SEC crypto working group Chief Legal Counsel Taylor Lindman disclosed for the first time: a rule proposal specifically targeting cryptocurrency custody has been sent from the SEC to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), entering the early review stage of the federal rulemaking process. Unlike the past few years, which relied entirely on enforcement and scattered guidance, the SEC has directly identified two key parties—broker-dealers and investment advisers—and provided a compliance path at a framework level for how they can “custody” these assets: broker-dealers will not need additional special registration requirements if they are custodians of non-securities crypto assets; investment advisers may hand over client assets to state-chartered trusts and consider them qualified custodians. The industry views this as a shift in regulation from "after-the-fact accountability" to "pre-emptive delineation," but Lindman also clarified that this is still just an early version of the proposal under OMB review, the full text has not been made public, and the rules are not yet in effect, merely placing an impending compliance turning point clearly in front of broker-dealers, investment advisers, and custody institutions.

From Enforcement Fear to Rule Implementation: Why the SEC Wants to Rewrite the Custody Game

Prior to this custody proposal, cryptocurrency custody had mostly been a game of "guessing the regulation." For years, the SEC primarily relied on case-by-case enforcement, risk alerts, and scattered verbal guidance to handle custody issues, leaving broker-dealers and investment advisers to infer from each investigation, fine, and settlement the lines they might be crossing, without seeing a unified set of written rules. Whether a special license for cryptocurrency was needed, and who could be considered a qualified custodian was in a gray area before September 23, 2026. The industry was more sensitive to “who the next enforcement action would fall on” rather than having a clear answer on “how custody businesses should be designed.” This compliance state driven by fear itself became a systemic cost.

The submission of this proposal for OMB review, along with Taylor Lindman's public explanation of the main content in Washington, marks the regulators’ shift towards using formal rules rather than post-fact punishment to delineate custody boundaries: broker-dealers are no longer required to obtain additional special registration for custody of non-securities crypto assets, and investment advisers can consider state-chartered trusts as qualified custodians. The regulatory logic is shifting from "case piecing" to "framework first." Several market commentary accounts have claimed that the rules aim to clarify the paths for investment advisers and fund custodians for digital assets, easing outdated regulatory burdens; however, this interpretation is merely an external narrative, as the SEC has not officially characterized it this way. The proposal is still under OMB review, with public comments and committee voting processes to follow. Until the rules are formally implemented, broker-dealers and investment advisers can only navigate the shadows of old enforcement while preparing for compliance shifts and uncertain amendments based on the new framework.

Broker-Dealers See a Clear Path: Holding Coins No Longer Equivalent to Stepping on a Landmine

Previously, the biggest psychological barrier for broker-dealers regarding cryptocurrency custody was not technical but rather licensing: should they continue using the existing securities broker-dealer license to take orders, or do they need to add a “crypto-only” or some new qualification? Even legal practitioners couldn't provide a consistent answer. Some compliance teams chose zero exposure, refusing to engage in any on-chain asset custody, while others cautiously tested the waters in gray areas, always worried that a single enforcement action could drag their existing business down. The proposed rules provide a clear signal at the framework level for the first time—broker-dealers custodying non-securities crypto assets do not need additional special registration requirements. The regulatory implication of this sentence is far beyond just “filling out one less form”; it fundamentally dismantles the logic of “custodying assets = risking your license,” allowing for a predictable compliance position under the existing regulatory identity.

If this design is preserved in the final rules, broker-dealers engaging in spot cryptocurrency trading with corresponding custody and handling tokenized assets will no longer need to repeatedly write legal opinions regarding “whether an additional category of unacquired license is required,” nor will they need to worry that single-point enforcement could drag their entire securities business into compliance restructuring, thus significantly lowering the entry threshold and uncertain costs. The direct chain reaction is that cryptocurrency trading platforms and market-making institutions must reassess their monopolistic advantages in custody: if traditional brokerages are allowed to custody non-securities crypto assets under the existing framework, institutional clients may prefer to place spot exposure and tokenized assets within familiar brokerage systems, forcing platforms to distinctly redefine their competitive boundaries in transaction matching, liquidity, and technical services. At the same time, the exploration of tokenized Canadian dollar deposit systems by the six major banks in Canada indicates that traditional finance is concurrently laying out tokenization and custody infrastructure globally; in this context, the clearer “path” for U.S. broker-dealers in custody feels like a suddenly illuminated late-arriving rule. The real suspense is: to what extent will broker-dealers believe this path is solid enough to expand their business scope into core pathways of crypto custody and tokenized assets, given that the specific application range and technical details have yet to be made public, and the rule text is still pending public commentary and committee voting.

State-Chartered Trusts Are Brought to the Stage: Who Can Be a Qualified Custodian

Once the custody path for broker-dealers was illuminated, attention quickly shifted to another set of protagonists—investment companies and investment advisers. A key turning point in the proposal framework publicly explained by Lindman is: allowing these institutions to store client assets in state-chartered trusts and formally considering them as “qualified custodians.” In the current context, banks and a few large custodian institutions almost monopolize the qualified custodian identity for traditional securities, while the industry has debated for years whether cryptocurrency assets can be placed in state-chartered trusts and whether they meet the SEC’s “safe custody” requirements. In reality, many institutions have already used state-chartered trusts as vehicle for custody but have always lacked a clear federal-level determination; now the proposal elevates this role to the regulatory stage, effectively providing these trust institutions with a long-awaited identity clarification.

The expansion of the custodian pool directly rewrites the competitive landscape. Banks and traditional custodians are no longer the sole gatekeepers in the digital asset field; professional crypto custody institutions holding state-level trust licenses now have the chance to compete alongside them, and the state-level trust system design is pushed to the forefront: which states’ licenses, what kind of capital, and prudent requirements will cross the SEC’s proposed “qualified custodian” threshold, still await the complete text and subsequent detailed rules to reveal. For investment companies and funds, the custodial options have shifted from “it’s almost impossible to find custodians that meet SEC requirements” to “being able to select from multiple custodial entities,” providing substantial relief from long-standing compliance pressures. However, this relief does not mean one can let their guard down because the real winners of custodial licenses will only emerge once the SEC delineates the final boundary for qualified custodians within the complete rules.

White House Review is Just the Opening Scene: Procedural Games and Uncertain Timelines

For this custody rule, being sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget is merely the first lap on the federal rulemaking track. The responsibility of the OMB is not to rewrite securities laws for the SEC but to assess major proposals from various federal agencies, including the SEC, from the perspectives of budget, economy, and overall policy coordination: it will judge whether this custody arrangement will lead to structural changes in regulatory costs, whether it could potentially impact capital market resource allocation, and suggest necessary technical modifications, supplemental impact assessments, or even recommend adjustments to the proposal's expression as needed. This means Lindman’s publicly described framework is not set in stone; specific wording, applicability, and exemption conditions may be finely polished during the back-and-forth commentary between the OMB and SEC, in order to have the opportunity to enter the next formal process.

Reality brings even more suspense regarding the timeline. The current custody rule remains at the stage of submission for OMB review, the complete text has not yet been made public, and it has not entered the procedural phase of announcement in the Federal Register and public commentary. According to existing processes, after passing through the OMB, the SEC will need to formally publish the proposed rule text, initiating public comments from investment companies, investment advisers, broker-dealers, and custody institutions, followed by a committee vote to decide whether the proposal will end according to the original draft, a revised version, or “be set aside.” However, critical details such as the formal name of the proposal, the specific submission date, the length of the comment period, and whether it will be tagged as “de-regulation” or “significant economic impact” remain unverified information at this time. The external parties can only piece together regulatory attitudes based on Lindman's framework description and a limited number of second-hand reports. Whether this rule will lighten outdated burdens is seen as a “deregulation” or a piece of a larger governmental crypto policy agenda has already sparked various politicized interpretations on social platforms and within lobbying circles, but until the formal text and classification markings are found, these interpretations can only be considered hypotheses needing subsequent factual verification rather than established conclusions.

Redrawing the Landscape After Loosening Custody Bottlenecks: Institutional Platforms and Users

If this advance proceeds under the existing framework, broker-dealers holding non-securities crypto assets will no longer be required additional special registration, partially dismantling the long-accumulated risk of “identity uncertainty;” institutions that previously only wanted to provide matching and liquidity will now be able to design integrated custody and market-making solutions under clearer compliance expectations for the first time. If investment advisers can legally use state-chartered trusts and other broader custody institutions as qualified custodians, “not being able to find a custodian” will no longer be the primary reason for blocking the allocation of crypto and tokenized products, and long-term funds such as family offices and pension funds will have the opportunity to include on-chain assets into standard investment advisory processes. In this context, the loosening expectations of U.S. custody rules resonate with the joint exploration of tokenized Canadian dollar deposit systems by the six major banks in Canada—BMO, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, and TD Bank are all betting on tokenized deposit infrastructure together, indicating that the custodial and settlement experiments of traditional finance have crossed beyond the narratives of U.S. regulation (confidence: single_source), and the global landscape is shifting from “single market pilot” to “parallel trial across multiple jurisdictions.” Yet from the perspective of September 23, 2026, this landscape remains at a sketch stage: the SEC custody proposal is still in a vacuum period between OMB review and formal publication, the terms may be tightened or expanded in public opinions and committee voting, and institutional platforms can only simulate scenarios around publicly disclosed frameworks, such as “broker-dealers custodying non-securities crypto assets without special registration” and “state-chartered trusts being viewed as qualified custodians,” preparing technical structures and compliance processes for broad latitude, narrow latitude, and even maintaining the status quo, where the true direction of the custody landscape in the U.S. and even globally will be determined by how many resources all parties are willing to invest in pre-arranging these competing options before the rules land.

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