U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw issued a statement responding to the Division of Corporation Finance’s staff statement on certain liquid staking activities, arguing it does not meaningfully clarify how federal securities laws apply to crypto assets and instead increases uncertainty. She cautioned that the staff statement should provide little comfort to entities engaged in liquid staking, particularly because it reflects only staff views rather than those of the Commission. Crenshaw attributed the lack of clarity to the statement’s reliance on extensive, unsupported factual assumptions about how liquid staking operates, which she said may not reflect industry reality, and to the way its legal conclusions are narrowly conditioned on those assumptions. She noted that the staff statement repeatedly flags, largely in footnotes, that variations in facts can change the Division’s view on whether a specific liquid staking activity involves the offer and sale of a security and that certain provider conduct would fall outside the statement’s scope. She also said the liquid staking statement builds on the Division’s earlier staff statement on protocol staking and that similar concerns apply.

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