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The discussion on how to regulate cryptocurrencies in the United States has long gone beyond the narrow circle of lawyers and developers. Today, it affects tens of thousands of investors, hundreds of companies, and several levels of government at once. That is why the position of the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), which opposed the rules of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), requires a separate analysis. It's not a matter of minor procedural changes, but in principle: who exactly has the right to allow the company to work with investors' money and who has the right to stop this work.

Let's start with what the SEC suggested. In August, the Commission rolled out a set of rules called Regulation Crypto Assets. The point is that token issuers can raise funds without fully registering with the agency. There is a one-time mechanism: a company can collect up to $ 5 million from customers over four years, but is required to disclose information about itself in detail and show financial statements. In addition, the SEC allowed issuers of cryptocurrencies to attract up to $75 million from investors every twelve months, also subject to disclosure and reporting. Formally, this is a step towards the market: there are fewer barriers and more opportunities for growth.

The California Department sees this construction differently. According to the DFPI, the proposed rules deprive the state of the opportunity to verify and, if necessary, prohibit the supply of high-risk digital assets, which should be classified as securities by their characteristics. The logic of the agency is as follows: exemption from registration with the SEC should not automatically mean exemption from verification at the local level. Even a company that has received federal relief must go through a separate procedure in California, so local investors will have an additional mechanism to protect themselves from unscrupulous entrepreneurs. The department emphasizes that it is not about creating unnecessary obstacles for bona fide participants, but about maintaining control where the risks are particularly high.

The assessment that the DFPI gave to the SEC's actions deserves special attention. The department called them an attempt to silence the supervision of cryptocurrencies by the states against the background of weakening federal control. Moreover, the agency's management fears that if similar rules are approved for digital assets, then a similar approach may extend to other categories of investments. In this case, investor protection will weaken across the country and far beyond the crypto industry. This is already a matter of precedent: today, regulatory logic applies to tokens, and tomorrow it can be transferred to a wider range of financial instruments.

California's argument is based on figures that are hardly comforting. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), losses from crypto asset fraud in the United States totaled $11.3 billion last year. Nearly 200 new entries were added to the California-based Crypto Scam Tracker during the same period, which is about 30 percent more than in 2024. Such statistics explain why the state is not ready to rely solely on federal procedures. When losses amount to billions, additional verification ceases to look like an unnecessary formality.

It is worth considering the general course of California in this area. In May, the DFPI ordered Anh Management, which manages the Hermes Bitcoin cryptomat network, to cease operations in the state. The regulator accused her of violating the rights of consumers of financial services and federal anti-money laundering (AML) laws. In September, the state authorities banned local government employees from issuing memcoins starting on January 1, 2027. Both decisions show that California is consistently building its own control circuit over digital assets and does not consider cryptocurrencies as a zone where it is acceptable to limit itself to general federal requirements.

The difficulty of the situation is that both sides proceed from reasonable assumptions. The SEC strives to provide the industry with clear and relatively accessible rules under which a company can develop by disclosing information about its activities. California assumes that disclosure alone is not a substitute for verification, especially when it comes to risky instruments and investors without deep experience. The dispute is not about whether oversight is needed, but about how many levels of oversight are needed and where the line between protection and over-administration lies.