SEC and CFTC jointly classify Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Stellar, Tezos, and XRP as digital commodities
The list traces back to a joint SEC and CFTC interpretive release that sorted 16 major tokens out of securities territory
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s chairman has named Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Stellar, Tezos, and XRP as digital commodities. For an industry that spent years arguing over what its biggest tokens actually are, that is a short sentence with a long backstory.
The classification places these assets on the commodity side of the US regulatory divide. That side is supervised by the CFTC, not the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Where the list comes from
The tokens are part of a broader group identified in a joint interpretive release from the SEC and CFTC, unveiled on March 17, 2026. That guidance labeled 16 major digital assets as “digital commodities,” which effectively moved them out of the securities classification.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig presented the guidance together at the DC Blockchain Summit.
The release did more than name names. It organized digital assets into five categories: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities.
Only the last of those buckets is typically treated as a security under US law, according to the guidance.
The interpretive release also addressed activities such as mining and staking. It did this through interpretive rules rather than new legislation, which means the agencies clarified how they read existing law instead of waiting for Congress to write a new one.
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The XRP chapter finally closes
Of the names on the list, XRP probably carries the most baggage. Ripple spent years in litigation with the SEC over whether its token sales amounted to securities offerings.
That fight wound down when all appeals were dropped in August 2025. The commodity classification followed the resolution, with regulators concluding that XRP’s programmatic sales do not constitute securities transactions.
Commodity status is not a free pass
Being a digital commodity does not mean being unregulated. These assets remain under the CFTC’s anti-fraud and anti-manipulation jurisdiction in spot markets.
The guidance also notes that regulators keep their authority to pursue fraudulent activity across the digital asset space.
The CFTC is also looking past classification toward trading rules. On October 5, 2026, Selig announced the agency’s intention to advance new regulations covering leveraged retail trading of digital assets.
Those proposals might establish new frameworks under what have been described as Regulation CTX and Regulation CAM.
Why regulators are filling the gap
The agencies are moving partly because Congress has not. Legislative efforts such as the CLARITY Act, which aimed to set out a full market structure framework for crypto, have stalled.
The limits are real. Comprehensive market structure rules still require congressional action, and guidance issued by one set of agency heads can be revisited by the next.