White House starts review of SEC crypto broker-dealer rules, but nobody outside has seen the text

A Securities and Exchange Commission draft that would amend the rules governing how brokerages handle crypto assets has gone to the White House for review. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) lists it as received on November 3, 2026, at the proposed-rule stage, marked "economically significant," with no legal deadline.

That is all the public record says. The SEC has not published a proposal, a press release or a fact sheet on sec.gov for this item, and the OIRA listing does not describe what would change. Reports that the draft "eases" requirements are therefore not something we can confirm. We checked reginfo.gov directly on Saturday, and this article is built on that record.

What the record does say

• Title: "Amendments to Broker-Dealer Financial Responsibility and Recordkeeping and Reporting Rules Regarding Crypto Assets," identifier RIN 3235-AN48.
• Rules in scope: the SEC's agenda entry says an SEC division is "considering recommending" amendments to Rules 15c3-1 and 15c3-3 and other broker-dealer financial responsibility rules, plus Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4, "to address the application of these rules to crypto assets."
• Legal authority: Sections 15(c) and 17(a) of the Exchange Act.
• Classification: "economically significant" under Executive Order 12866, meaning an expected annual effect of $100 million or more on the economy or a sector of it.

In plain terms: 15c3-1 is the net capital rule, how much cushion a brokerage must hold. 15c3-3 is the customer protection rule, which governs reserves and the custody of customer securities. Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 set what records a broker must create and keep. Unchained and The Defiant both describe the same three areas: capital, customer-asset safeguards and recordkeeping. Neither reports the contents of the draft.

The number behind the number: a four-month slip

The same agenda entry lists the proposal's target date as July 2026. It reached OIRA in November. Agenda dates are goals, not commitments, but the gap shows how long the SEC's broker-dealer crypto work has taken compared with its own plan. OIRA review has no fixed length for a case with no legal deadline, so we cannot say when the text will appear.

Who is affected

The proposal would apply to SEC-registered broker-dealers that deal in or hold crypto assets for customers. The capital and customer-protection rules were written before crypto assets existed; the agenda abstract says the aim is to address how they apply to crypto. Which firms benefit, and whether any requirement gets lighter or heavier, depends on text no one outside government has read. For brokerages and crypto exchanges that run or want a broker-dealer arm, the practical point is to watch for the proposal and its comment period rather than assume a direction.

How it fits with custody, CLARITY and GENIUS

This is the second SEC crypto item on the White House's desk this autumn. On October 1 the commission proposed custody rules for investment advisers and funds; we covered the details in our custody story. That one covers advisers. This one covers brokers, which is a different set of firms and different rules.

Both are SEC efforts to write crypto rules under existing law after the CLARITY market-structure bill failed to clear the Senate, as we reported in CLARITY failed, and SEC guidance is weaker than law. Unchained reports SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in September the agency would proceed under its current authority with or without legislation.

The GENIUS Act is a separate track. It governs stablecoin issuers, and the implementing rules are coming from the Federal Reserve and other banking and Treasury agencies; see the Fed's proposal. Neither the OIRA record nor the two outlets we read link this broker-dealer draft to GENIUS, so we are not claiming a link. The overlap to watch is practical: if brokers hold or sell stablecoins, both sets of rules could touch them, but the draft would have to say so.

Timeline and comments

Nothing is open for comment yet. Once OIRA finishes and the SEC votes to propose, the text would be published with a comment period; the SEC's custody proposal used 60 days. We will update this story when the proposal appears on sec.gov.

Sources: OIRA review listing and Unified Agenda entry (reginfo.gov); Unchained via Yahoo Finance; The Defiant; SEC release 2026-100; chart from Yahoo Finance price data. This is regulatory information, not investment advice.