What happened
CryptoBriefing reported Friday afternoon that the SEC and CFTC have classified XRP and Solana as commodities, part of what the outlet described as a broader set of crypto policy shifts moving through Washington. The classification is joint, which is the unusual part. The two agencies have spent most of the past four years talking past each other on where a token stops being an investment contract and starts being a commodity.
Friday's disclosure collapses that gap for two specific assets. It does not, on its face, extend to every token on either chain, and it does not retroactively unwind past enforcement actions. What it does is settle the live question for XRP and SOL at the federal agency level, without waiting for another appellate ruling to do it.
Ripple's XRP has been the flashpoint since December 2020, when the SEC sued the company over $1. 3 billion in token sales. Solana was named as a security in the SEC's 2023 complaints against Coinbase and Binance.
Both framings now sit in tension with Friday's classification.
Why it matters
The commodity label changes who writes the rules. Under the Commodity Exchange Act, the CFTC has authority over derivatives and, through anti-fraud provisions, spot market conduct. The SEC's jurisdiction narrows to the primary sale question and any tokens that still meet the Howey test on their own facts.
For XRP and SOL, that means listings, custody, and market-structure questions move toward a regulator that has historically taken a lighter touch on token trading than the SEC under former chair Gary Gensler. It also unlocks product pipelines. Spot XRP and spot SOL ETF applications, several of them already sitting with the SEC, no longer carry the security-classification risk that was the main quiet objection from staff.