Digital commodity
Plain definition. In SEC guidance, a digital commodity is a crypto asset needed to use parts of a working crypto system, listed among crypto assets that are not securities.
Technical definition. The SEC’s page “Crypto Assets and the Federal Securities Laws” draws on interpretive guidance the agency provided in 2026. It places the digital commodity under crypto assets that are not securities, a digital representation of value recorded on a cryptographically secured distributed ledger that “is necessary to participate in or use certain aspects of an associated functional crypto system.” Such assets derive their value from the programmatic operation of that system and from supply and demand dynamics, and the SEC’s examples include XRP (XRP), Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
On this site
On this site, Digital commodity comes up in Is XRP a security?, Could a future US government reverse XRP’s regulatory position? and Does the Ripple ruling bind other courts or settle the status of other tokens?.
Source
SEC.gov | Crypto Assets and the Federal Securities Laws (sec.gov), read October 1, 2026.