美国证券交易委员会（SEC）提案拟消除加密资产顾问的托管障碍

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposes new regulations: allowing investment advisers to keep client cryptocurrency assets by themselves when a qualified custodian is missing.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a modification aimed at reducing the threshold for investment advisers and specific funds to hold client cryptocurrency assets in the absence of a qualified custodian. The measure, announced on Thursday, aims to eliminate a real bottleneck and thereby broaden the scope of exposure that investment advisers can provide to digital assets.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in a statement that the crypto market has grown into an asset class worth trillions of dollars, but existing rules have failed to keep pace with investors 'demand for such assets. The proposal targets specific custody requirements under the federal investment advisers and investment companies framework, noting that companies may face challenges when seeking "qualified" custody arrangements for specific assets.

Core Points

• Conditional self-custody: If the rules do not specify an allowed custodian to custody specific assets, the SEC proposal allows investment advisers to hold some client crypto assets on their own.
• Compliance Barrier: Self-custody must meet a number of conditions, including quarterly re-evaluation, private key control, network security requirements, and approval of transfers by at least two authorized persons.
• State Trust Company Role: The SEC also allows eligible state trust companies to serve as custodians of crypto assets provided they meet authorization, asset protection, asset isolation, and audited reporting standards.
• Timely transfer obligations: Once a qualified custodian is available, investment advisers and self-custodial funds usually need to transfer assets to that custodian as soon as possible.
• Public Comment Request: The SEC will accept public comments for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The crypto custody dilemma the SEC is trying to solve

The SEC's proposal focuses on a custody barrier that has practical operational consequences: the difficulty for investment advisers to find qualified custodians for specific crypto assets. When a token does not have an approved custody path, investment advisers may reduce allocation, delay customer access to the assets, or require the portfolio company to temporarily retain the assets until custody options improve.

This issue has been mentioned many times before. In May 2025, a filing with the SEC by the Digital Chamber noted that limitations on qualified custody resources have led some investment advisers to refuse token allocation or temporarily retain assets in the hands of portfolio companies until custody support is in place. The SEC's latest action is essentially a response to this gap-moving from "allowing only qualified custodians to hold" to a conditional framework that can resolve exceptions.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce described the issue as a regulatory "roller coaster" in a statement Thursday. She believes investment advisers have been waiting for workable custody rules while trying to comply with requirements that may not be consistent with market reality-an uncertainty described as a difficult dilemma for companies to manage.

Conditional consultant self-hosting with compliance guardrails

根据提案，投资顾问可以直接持有客户的加密资产，但仅限于定义的情形下。顾问必须证明对于所涉特定加密资产没有可用的允许托管人，并且必须每季度重新评估这一决定。

如果后来有了允许的托管人，顾问预计应尽快将资产转移到该托管人。这些规则旨在防止自托管成为合格托管的默认替代品。

SEC还概述了旨在降低运营和安全风险的护栏措施。自托管需要对私钥和网络安全进行保障，并隔离每位客户的持仓。此外，任何自托管加密资产的转账都需要至少两名授权人员的批准——这是一项旨在限制单人对客户资金权限的内部控制措施。

SEC委员马克·尤耶达（Mark Uyeda）表示，该提案承认顾问托管可能产生固有的利益冲突。然而，他强调，当顾问为客户持有加密资产时，其受托责任仍然适用，保持了法律责任的完整性，而不是将风险外包给第三方。

将框架扩展至特定基金和州信托公司

SEC的提案不仅限于单独行动的投资顾问。如果基金的投資顧問符合提案中的自托管要求，该提案还将允许受监管的基金以自托管方式持有加密资产。基金的董事会也需要监督这一安排，反映了SEC在顾问直接持有客户资产时对治理和监督的重视。

除了自托管外，提案引入了第二条路径：使用州信托公司作为加密托管人。SEC为此选项设定了条件，包括信托公司需由其相关州当局授权提供加密托管服务；保持旨在防止资产丢失、被盗或挪用资产的合理程序；并提供经审计的财务报表和内部控制报告。

SEC还规定了隔离要求——客户持仓需要与公司自有资产分开，这是托管模式中保护投资者的关键措施。

最后，该方案还包括对审计、记录保存和披露要求的变更。SEC表示，将在提案于《联邦公报》发布后接受为期60天的公众评论，让行业参与者有时间评估这些标准在实际操作中的可行性。

为何此时提出该提案：SEC与CFTC的监管重置

SEC的这一举措符合美国市场监管机构利用现有权力建立更清晰加密框架的更广泛监管努力。SEC和商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）一直在探索不完全依赖停滞不前立法途径的方法。

据报道，该提案是在上个月参议院未能推进《CLARITY法案》之后 momentum 的基础上提出的。CFTC也已向白宫提交了一份加密市场监管计划，而SEC此前也已在自己的职权范围内开辟了与代币化证券相关的途径。

From the perspective of investors and market structures, custody issues are fundamental. Even though in theory there may be trading or tokenization exposure, in practice advisers may be subject to custody qualifications. By creating conditional exceptions with enhanced controls (such as self-custody and state trust company options), the SEC appears to be focused on unlocking product availability without eliminating regulatory needs.

Still, significant uncertainties remain: the proposal has not yet been finalized, and companies need to evaluate how to implement quarterly reevaluations, transfer approval requirements and isolation standards in practice-especially for consultants managing multiple customers and extensive crypto exposure.

As the 60-day comment window approaches, market participants should pay close attention to how the SEC clarifies the "no allowed custodian available" criterion, what documents advisers will be expected to retain, and whether the state trust company path can quickly expand custody capabilities to address the token level gap that constrains allocation.