📍SEC confirms that liquid staking does not violate securities laws

📌 The SEC's Office of Corporate Finance has just released guidance confirming that liquid staking is not considered a securities offering, as long as it meets certain core conditions.

📌 Specifically, staking receipt ( such as stETH, rETH... ) will not be considered securities if:
- The token created only represents the ownership rights of the staked assets and the accompanying rewards.
- The provider does not intervene, operate, or decide the timing of staking, but only acts as an "agent" intermediary processing requests from users.
- Does not exist "effort of others" - a factor that often causes DeFi products to fall under the Howey Test.

📌 With this confirmation, liquid staking is identified as a technology service, not an investment product. A major win for both Ethereum, staking protocols (Lido, Rocket Pool, Jito…), and the DeFi ecosystem. ETF staking will be paved the way, and LST will become the standard collateral asset for borrowing/lending protocols.

📌 However, LST is only "free within the framework"; if the staking protocol arbitrarily selects validators, decides when to unstake, or has an active profit-sharing mechanism, it may still be considered a security.