October 29, 2026
J. Daniel “Raven” Hughes, Creator of The Realm® | Alchemy Studios, LLC
I design every Land Title certificate for The Realm® myself: the frames, the island heralds, the land blocks, all of it. For years, every NFT artist I know has worked under a cloud. Make something beautiful, put it on a blockchain, and someone in Washington might decide it was a stock. This year, that changed.
This post is my personal view and a general news summary. It is not legal or financial advice, and nothing here is an offer to sell securities.
What changed in March
On March 17, 2026, the SEC and the CFTC issued a joint interpretation of how federal securities law applies to crypto assets. It took effect on March 23. It sorts crypto assets into categories, and it says plainly that digital collectibles, assets “designed to be collected and/or used” such as artwork, music and in-game items, are not securities. Their value comes from what people want to collect and use, not from a company’s management work. The examples it names include CryptoPunks and Chromie Squiggles.
That is a long way from 2023, when the SEC brought cases over NFT collections such as Impact Theory’s Founder’s Keys and Stoner Cats. Since then the agency closed its investigations of Yuga Labs and OpenSea without action, and in February 2025 its staff said it did not intend to pursue certain NFT activity. The March guidance puts that change in writing.
What did not change
The guidance still looks at how a collectible is sold. If a seller makes specific promises about how buyers will profit from the seller’s own work, with milestones, timelines and returns, that offer can still be treated as an investment contract. Fractional interests in a collectible can also be securities.
That is why we have always described Land Titles the way we do. A Land Title is a collectible for use inside The Realm®. It is not an investment, and we never promise anyone a profit. What we promise is the art, and the ground: a place to build a shop, open a gallery, host an event or make a home.
Congress tried to write it into law
The CLARITY Act, the digital asset market structure bill, would have made this permanent. The House passed it in July 2025, and its NFT section would have created a safe harbor for NFTs used as collectibles and in-game items. On September 15, 2026, the Senate’s procedural vote to take it up failed, 49 to 50. With the midterms ahead, it may have to be reintroduced when the new Congress begins in January 2027. Until then, the March guidance is the clearest word we have.
What it means for Land Titles
For me as an artist, it means I can talk about my work the way painters always have. Each Land Title is a certificate made for its island, with its own land block, recorded on Polygon and numbered when it is issued. The new certificates for Boardwalk Island, Asclepia Key, Grand Island, Hyperion Island and its Commerce Center, and Kingdom Cove are on the island pages now.
Collect them because you love the art, or because you want ground in The Realm® to build on. That has always been the point.
— Raven
Sources
• Gibson Dunn: SEC interpretive guidance on crypto assets
• Free Writings & Perspectives: the joint SEC–CFTC interpretation
• Croke Fairchild: NFTs after CLARITY
• DLA Piper: Senate fails to advance the CLARITY Act
• American Banker: crypto market structure bill fails in Senate vote, 49–50