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It’s Time to Reform the Accredited Investor Rule

In recent weeks, President Trump has taken steps to draw investment to the United States. His proposed Gold Card would allow foreign investors to purchase legal status in the United States for $5 million. In his Joint Address to Congress, he lauded a $200 billion direct investment from Japan’s SoftBank.
While there’s nothing wrong with soliciting offshore investment, the government is missing a key source of investment at home. The accredited investor rule — which says that individuals must have a net worth of more than $1 million, or annual income exceeding $200,000 — shuts too many Americans out of our most lucrative securities markets. It’s time to change that.
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In the U.S., securities broadly fall into two categories: public and private. Public securities trade freely on national exchanges and are open to all investors, but they are extremely onerous to issue. Companies are required to navigate extensive regulatory and compliance requirements to “go public.” Their alternative is to stay private, and many companies like Stripe and SpaceX are choosing to do just that.
Private markets, however, come with a catch. In exchange for easing the burden of regulation, they restrict access to accredited investors. This means that 80% of American households that do not qualify are effectively shut out. As more businesses choose to stay private, more everyday Americans are prevented from building wealth alongside them.
In the old days, public markets were the deepest and most reliable sources of capital for large, high-growth companies. This was great for the public, because it meant they had access to the best investments. Times have changed, though.
According to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, “The once aspirational goal of becoming a public company seems to have lost its luster.” In recent years, private markets have grown at roughly double the rate of global public equity markets.
And a single SEC rule is to blame.
The accredited investor rule
The accredited investor rule, 17 CFR § 230.501(a), is an SEC regulation that restricts access to private investments. It sets criteria investors must meet to participate in offerings like Regulation D, the primary exemption private companies use to raise capital. In effect, the rule blocks millions of Americans from investing in the most promising companies.
Advocates defend this rule openly. “Knowledge cannot protect people from potential losses… Only financial resources can,” Patrick Woodall, director of policy at Americans for Financial Reform, told The Wall Street Journal last year.
We disagree. This paternalistic view assumes the public must be “protected” from itself. But the accredited investor rule doesn’t protect the public. It locks them out from investing in companies shaping the future like OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity.
The test
Last year, Sen. Tim Scott sponsored the Empowering Main Street in America Act (EMSAA), proposing, among other things, a test-in accredited investor definition.
A test-in policy has clear advantages. First, it’s fair. Any American who passes can invest. Second, broader access to private markets lets more Americans share in the country’s economic success. If we’re building here, everyone should be able to buy in. Third, expanding private markets makes them more useful.
But Sen. Scott’s bill is unnecessary — a test-in accredited investor rule doesn’t require new legislation. The SEC already has the power to implement it through Sec. 2(a)(15) of the Securities Act of 1933. Because of this, an amendment to the rule on these grounds is unlikely to encounter significant legal resistance. By amending the accredited investor rule, the SEC can reshape private markets through rulemaking alone. It should start tomorrow.
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Canary Capital Files for Tron ETF With Staking Capabilities

Canary Capital is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Tron’s native token, TRX, according to a filing.
The hedge fund submitted a Form S-1 for the Canary Staked TRX ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. As the name suggests, the fund — if approved — would stake portions of its holdings.
This would be done through third-party providers, with BitGo acting as custodian for the assets. The fund would track TRX’s spot price using CoinDesk Indices calculations.
A proposed ticker as well as the management fee for the product have not been shared yet.
Issuers had initially filed applications for spot ethereum (ETH) ETFs with the staking feature included but removed them in an amended filing later in order to receive approval from the SEC on their proposals.
While the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler was strictly against staking, issuers have grown more hopeful that they will be able to add the feature to their spot ether funds, among others, with the appointment of crypto-friendly Chair Paul Atkins.
A decision on a February request from Grayscale to allow staking in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) was postponed by the regulator just a few days ago.
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Feds Mistakenly Order Estonian HashFlare Fraudsters to Self-Deport Ahead of Sentencing

Just four months ahead of their criminal sentencing for operating a $577 million cryptocurrency mining Ponzi scheme, the two Estonian founders of HashFlare were seemingly mistakenly ordered to self-deport by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — an instruction that directly contradicted a court order for the men to remain in Washington state until they are sentenced in August.
In a joint letter to the court last week, lawyers for Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin told District Judge Robert Lasnik of the Western District of Washington that both men had received “disturbing communications” from DHS ordering them to leave the country immediately.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” an email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11 read. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
The email, included with the letter filed last week, threatened both men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties and any other lawful options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It resembles emails that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have received over the past few days.
Ironically, Potapenko and Turogin are not in the U.S. of their own volition — they were extradited from their native Estonia at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022 on an 18-count indictment tied to their HashFlare scheme. Though they initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, in February they both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. They have both been in the Seattle area on bond since last July.
“Although there is nothing Ivan and Sergei would want more than to immediately go home, they understood that they are also under Court order to remain in King County,” wrote Mark Bini, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and lead counsel for Potenko, wrote in the pair’s joint letter to the court. Bini did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
In his letter, Bini said DHS’s emails had caused both Potapenko and Turogin «significant anxiety.”
“We and our clients have all seen recent news. Immigration authorities make mistakes, and individuals who should not be in custody end up in custody, sometimes even deported to places where they should not be deported,” Bini wrote.
Six days after Bini’s letter to the judge, the DOJ filed its own letter with the court saying that prosecutors had coordinated with DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and secured a year-long deferral to the self-deportation order.
“This should provide ample time for the sentencing to take place,” the prosecution’s letter said.
DHS did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Potapenko and Turogin are slated to be sentenced on August 14 in Seattle. Their lawyers have said that they will request to be sentenced to time served, meaning no additional time in prison, and to be sent home to Estonia “immediately.”
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CoinDesk Weekly Recap: EigenLayer, Kraken, Coinbase, AWS

Following last week’s tariff-caused drama, this was a relatively quiet week in crypto. Bitcoin remained stable around $84k. The CoinDesk 20, which tracks about 80% of the market, was up about 4% in the last seven days — i.e. nothing historic.
Still, plenty happened. On Tuesday, much of crypto went offline because of a tech issue at AWS, showing how the decentralized economy isn’t always that decentralized. Shaurya Malwa reported the news early. Bitcoin and other major cryptos slipped on bad news for Nvidia, Omkar Godbole reported.
Mantra, a project focused on real world assets, lost 90% of its value. Explanations varied (the company said it was due to “force liquidations” exchanges).
Meanwhile, EigenLayer, a restaking leader, rolled out a “slashing” feature meant to address security concerns (Sam Kessler reported). OKX, a major exchange, announced plans to set up in California following a $500 million settlement with the SEC over claims it operated previously in the U.S. without a money transmitter license. Cheyenne Ligon had that story.
In less good news, Kraken laid off “hundreds” of staff ahead of an expected IPO. And Coinbase became embroiled in a “front running controversy” linked to a curiously named token on its Base L2. Privacy advocates reacted with alarm to rumors that Binance was about to delist Zcash following a long decline in the value of privacy coins.
In D.C. news, Jesse Hamilton reported on a new wave of crypto lobbyists flooding the capital. Some asked if there are now too many trade groups and whether they really all could be effective.
Friends With Benefits, a buzzy social club for creative technologists, launched a new program to build Web3 products for music, film, publishing and other fun activities. (I wrote that one.)
Of course, there was plenty happening in the economy and markets (Trump’s disgust for Fed chair Powell fed into the unease). But, in crypto, it was pretty much business as usual. Fortunes won, fortunes lost, fortunes deferred.
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