The SEC’s crypto broker-dealer rule is at the White House: what the filing shows, and what is still unpublished

The SEC crypto broker-dealer rule, the Commission’s first proposed rule on how US brokers hold and count crypto assets, reached the White House on Tuesday 3 November 2026. The review list of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), read by Coindaro at about 17:40 UTC on 7 November, shows the Securities and Exchange Commission’s draft “Amendments to Broker-Dealer Financial Responsibility and Recordkeeping and Reporting Rules Regarding Crypto Assets” (RIN 3235-AN48) as pending review. It is a proposed rule, flagged as economically significant, with no legal deadline.

The text is not public. Neither the SEC nor the Office of Management and Budget, which houses OIRA, has published it, so the numbers that matter to brokers, such as how much capital a firm must hold against bitcoin or a stablecoin, are not public. Bitcoin.com News, which reported the filing on 7 November, made the same point.

What exists today is a set of staff answers and statements, not a rule. The filing suggests the SEC now wants to write some of that into the rulebook itself. It arrived on election day, as Democrats won both chambers of Congress; the agency has given no reason for the timing.

What the OIRA filing shows, and what it does not

The OIRA record is short. Agency: SEC. Stage: proposed rule, meaning a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), not a final rule. Received: 11/03/2026. Legal deadline: none. On the same page, two other SEC proposals were pending on 7 November: “Executive Compensation Disclosure Reform”, received on 26 August, and “Evaluating the Consolidated Audit Trail”, received on 26 October.

Its scope is set out in the agency’s planning documents. In the Fall 2025 Unified Agenda, the Division of Trading and Markets says it is considering a recommendation to amend Rules 15c3-1 and 15c3-3 and other financial responsibility rules, along with Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4, “to address the application of these rules to crypto assets”. The legal authority cited is Exchange Act sections 15(c) and 17(a).

The project has slipped twice. It first appeared in the Spring 2025 agenda, without the words “Regarding Crypto Assets” in its title, with an NPRM planned for April 2026. The Fall 2025 agenda moved that to July 2026. Both dates have passed.

What the SEC crypto broker-dealer rule would amend: four rules

These rules are old and dense, but each one does a plain job. Together they decide whether a broker can survive a bad day and whether customers get their assets back if it cannot.

Rule 15c3-1: net capital and haircuts

The net capital rule sets a floor of liquid capital. A firm that carries customer accounts and holds their funds or securities must keep at least $250,000, and firms on the alternative standard need the greater of $250,000 or 2% of aggregate debit items. When a broker counts its capital, each asset is cut by a haircut that reflects how much it could lose in a forced sale. An asset with no “ready market” is deducted in full.

For crypto, the haircuts in use today come from staff, not from the rule. The Trading and Markets FAQ says, in an answer dated 15 May 2025, that the staff will not object if a broker treats proprietary bitcoin or ether as readily marketable, so the 20% haircut for commodities applies. A second answer, added on 19 February 2026, allows a 2% haircut on qualifying payment stablecoins. Coindaro explained that figure, and Circle’s request to cut it to zero, in our piece on the 2% stablecoin haircut. The FAQ names no haircut for other tokens.

Rule 15c3-3: customer protection and custody

The customer protection rule requires a broker to obtain and keep “physical possession or control” of customers’ fully paid and excess margin securities. It also makes carrying firms compute a reserve formula, weekly for most of them, and keep the result in a Customer Reserve Bank Account separate from the firm’s own money. The FAQ adds a limit that matters for crypto: paragraph (b) of the rule applies only to securities, so bitcoin held for a customer is outside it.

On 17 December 2025 the Division published a statement on custody of crypto asset securities, including tokenized shares and bonds. It will not object if a broker deems itself in “physical possession” when it meets a set of conditions: direct access to the asset and the ability to move it on its blockchain, a documented assessment of that network before taking custody and at regular intervals after, no custody when it knows of material security problems, private-key controls in line with industry practice, and written plans for hard forks, airdrops, 51% attacks, lawful orders to seize or freeze the asset, and a transfer to a trustee if the firm fails.

Commissioner Hester Peirce, in a statement the same day, encouraged the Division to “swiftly develop recommendations for Commission consideration regarding amendments to Rule 15c3-3”. The filing now at OIRA names that rule.

Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4: the books

Rule 17a-3 lists the records a broker must keep current, starting with blotters: a daily record of every purchase and sale, every receipt and delivery of securities and every movement of cash. Rule 17a-4 says how long they are kept, six years for some, three years for others, the first two in an easily accessible place. The staff FAQ suggests that a broker running a crypto business that is not in securities could keep the same records for it. A rule could make that a duty.

Why staff guidance is not enough for brokers

Every staff answer cited above carries the same warning: it is the view of the staff, it has no legal force and the Commission has neither approved nor disapproved it. Staff can change its answers without a vote. A Commission rule, by contrast, goes through public comment and binds the agency too.

The custody history shows how temporary the current setup is. In December 2020 the Commission itself set a safe harbor for “special purpose” broker-dealers, open only to firms that limited their business to digital asset securities, and wrote that it would expire five years after publication. The May 2025 FAQ says compliance with it is not mandatory. The December 2025 staff statement covers any broker, including traditional ones, and says its conditions are generally a subset of the 2020 ones.

Rules on haircuts decide how costly it is for a broker to hold crypto on its own balance sheet. Rules on possession decide whether a stock broker can hold a customer’s tokenized shares itself. And the FAQ is blunt on protection: SIPC does not cover non-security crypto assets held by a member broker, nor unregistered investment contracts. For how exchanges hold client coins today, see our guide to how centralized exchanges work.

What nobody knows yet

The text, first. Whether the proposal keeps, raises or cuts the 20% and 2% haircuts, whether it names haircuts for tokens beyond bitcoin, ether and stablecoins, and whether it turns the possession conditions into rule text are all open. So is the scope: the agenda abstract mentions Rules 15c3-1 and 15c3-3 and “other” financial responsibility rules without saying which. The Commission vote count is unknown. Coindaro could not confirm from the reginfo.gov meetings log whether OIRA has met any outside group about the rule, and no company or lawmaker has commented on the filing in any statement Coindaro found.

The 90-day clock and the next steps

OIRA reviews significant rules from independent agencies such as the SEC because of Executive Order 14215 of 18 February 2025, which rewrote the definition of “agency” in Executive Order 12866. A rule is economically significant under section 3(f)(1) of that order when it may have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more. Section 6(b)(2)(B) gives OIRA 90 calendar days to finish a review of this kind, counted from the day the agency hands over its draft and analysis, and section 6(b)(2)(C) allows one extension of up to 30 days with the OMB Director’s written approval, plus extensions at the request of the agency head.

Counted from receipt on 3 November, 90 days ends on 1 February 2027, or 3 March with a 30-day extension. Reviews can be shorter: the Labor Department’s 401(k) proposal, sent in January, cleared OIRA on 24 March, as told in our report on the 401(k) crypto rule now at the White House.

After OIRA, the Commission has to vote to propose. The text then appears in the Federal Register with a comment period; Regulation Crypto Assets, the SEC’s offering proposal, had 60 days, as covered in our piece on the close of its comments. A final rule needs a second Commission vote and goes back to OIRA. Until then nothing changes for brokers, and the staff guidance stays in place.

A new Congress arrives before any final rule

Democrats take control of the 120th Congress on 3 January 2027, according to Bitcoin.com News, which also notes that a final rule could face a Congressional Review Act resolution and that President Trump could veto one, with a two-thirds vote needed in each chamber to override. On the timetable above, a final rule before the new Congress sits is close to impossible: with a 60-day comment period, even a proposal published this month would still be open for comment in January. What the sweep means for crypto bills is in our analysis of Senator Warren’s likely Senate Banking chair.

For readers in Europe, none of this applies directly: crypto-asset service providers licensed under MiCA have their own prudential and custody rules. The next public sign of this one will be the reginfo.gov record changing from “Pending Review” to concluded.