The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched “Project Crypto,” a wide-ranging plan to modernize securities rules for digital assets and bring blockchain-based trading under a clearer regulatory framework. The initiative, unveiled on 4 August by Chair Paul Atkins, aims to harmonize standards for token issuance, custody and trading that have long been a source of legal uncertainty for the industry. As an immediate step, the agency issued staff guidance allowing certain fully backed U.S.-dollar stablecoins with guaranteed redemption rights and demonstrable price stability to be classified as cash equivalents on corporate balance sheets. The change softens earlier accounting rules that critics said discouraged banks and institutional investors from holding the tokens. Commissioner Hester Peirce endorsed the shift in a 5 August speech that emphasized the need to protect Americans’ financial privacy and their ability to self-custody digital assets. “We should welcome privacy-protecting technologies and safeguard the right of individuals to self-custody their crypto assets,” she said, adding that regulators must guard “zealously” the public’s right to conduct private transactions. Brokerage firm Bernstein said Project Crypto could “rewrite the rules of Wall Street” by lowering barriers for traditional financial institutions to engage with digital assets. Industry groups likewise contend that the combination of accounting relief and a promised over-haul of market rules could accelerate the return of developers and capital to the United States.