So where do Defi platforms like Decentraland, Sandbox Metaverse stand? Platforms where people use coins as payment. So realistically if Roblox had a coin that would make it more useful and accessible globally.
Platforms like Decentraland and Sandbox sit right at the fault line of this legislation, and a Roblox-style coin would face the same questions they do: is the token a commodity, a security, or something entirely new called a digital collectible?
Here's the answer from Mary's digital twin. The gray check mark turns green once Mary has confirmed it.
The classification problem that determines everything
The regulatory framework being built right now classifies tokens by what they actually do, not by what their issuers call them. Instead of classifying crypto by name, the emerging law looks at how each asset actually behaves, creating categories with their own regulator: digital commodities, investment contract assets, and payment stablecoins. A fourth category matters enormously for gaming and metaverse worlds: the joint SEC-CFTC interpretation provides a token taxonomy that includes digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities.
That "digital collectibles" and "digital tools" category is where Decentraland's $MANA, Sandbox's $SAND, and a hypothetical Roblox coin would want to land. The problem is that both $MANA and $SAND have a complicated history with regulators. The SEC's earlier scrutiny targeted cryptocurrencies considered securities, including Decentraland's token $MANA, and these metaverse games are at the forefront of the web3 gaming industry. That scrutiny came under the old enforcement-first regime. The new framework changes the question, but does not automatically change the answer.
What the new rules actually mean for metaverse and gaming tokens
The critical test under the new taxonomy is decentralization and utility. The legislation introduces the concept of blockchain maturity: a network qualifies when it no longer depends on a centralized group to function and the token has real utility within its ecosystem. Once a project meets those criteria, it can apply to graduate from SEC oversight to the CFTC. A token used to buy virtual land, pay for in-world items, and govern a platform has a plausible case for utility. The question is whether the network running it is decentralized enough to pass the test.
NFT marketplaces continue to operate under varying interpretations depending on the types of digital assets supported. Platforms focused on collectibles or gaming assets may face different considerations than those facilitating tokenized financial-style products. Web3 gaming platforms often combine tokens, marketplaces, and gameplay systems, creating regulatory questions that differ by jurisdiction. Some gaming projects have modified token structures or limited regional availability while assessing compliance obligations.
For DeFi developers building the infrastructure underneath all of this, there is some protection. The bill carries protection for developers who write open-source code but never touch user funds. Publishing a smart contract stops being the legal equivalent of running an unlicensed money transmitter.
The Roblox scenario is the most interesting one
Roblox already operates something close to a closed-loop economy with Robux. The moment you put that coin on a public blockchain, let it trade on an open exchange, and let people earn it for in-world activity, the regulatory calculus shifts entirely. You are no longer running an arcade token; you are running a monetary system.
The upside your question points at is real: a blockchain-based token makes micropayments borderless. A kid in Lagos and a kid in London can both earn and spend the same coin, with no currency conversion friction. That is genuinely powerful for accessibility.
But the compliance cost is also real. Firms will need to classify assets as digital commodities or securities, prepare for CFTC registration if operating non-security token platforms, and align tokenized assets with securities laws including audited on- and off-chain records. A company the size of Roblox could absorb that. A startup trying to build the next Roblox would find it a serious barrier.
The framework is still forming. The House passed the CLARITY Act in July 2025 and a revised version cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026, but as of September 2026 it is not yet law. The direction is clear. The rules are not yet final. That means the window to shape how gaming tokens get classified is still open, and the platforms that engage with regulators now are the ones that get to influence how the line gets drawn.
Follow-ups
So are Metaverse tokens collectables or not?
The honest answer as of September 2026 is: probably not collectibles in the clean legal sense, but not clearly securities either, and the new regulatory framework has finally created a path to land in a better category if the platforms play it right.
Where MANA and SAND actually stand right now
The SEC's position, stated in its 2023 lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, was that both SAND and MANA are securities. The core argument was straightforward: both tokens were sold in early ICOs where buyers expected a profit based on the founding teams' work, which is the classic Howey test. Decentraland raised roughly $24 million in its 2017 ICO selling MANA at a deep discount to early contributors, and the SEC pointed to that early distribution as an unregistered security sale.
That was the old enforcement-first era. The landscape has shifted considerably since then.
In March 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly issued Interpretive Release No. 33-11412, which established a five-category digital asset taxonomy. The five buckets are: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities. That "digital collectibles" and "digital tools" designation is where metaverse platforms want to land. The release named 16 tokens explicitly as digital commodities, and neither MANA nor SAND made that list. But that list covers assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana whose value derives from a functional blockchain rather than a specific team's promises.
So the real question is whether MANA and SAND can migrate from the securities column into the collectibles or digital tools column under the new taxonomy.
The carve-out that matters
Section 103 of the CLARITY Act, which passed the House 294-134 in July 2025 but has since stalled in the Senate (the cloture vote failed 49-50 on September 15, 2026), explicitly excludes "collectibles, merchandise, virtual land, and video game assets" from the digital commodity definition. That is the first time Congress has named in-game and virtual world assets as a distinct regulatory category, separate from both commodities like Bitcoin and securities like tokenized equity.
Read that carefully though. It is an exclusion from the commodity definition, not a free pass. A token can still get pulled into securities territory depending on how it was sold and marketed. For MANA and SAND, the problem is that their histories include large ICOs marketed partly as investment opportunities. That original sin does not disappear because a new framework exists.
What determines the outcome
The framework is now asking a functional question: what does the token actually do today, not how it was initially sold? If MANA and SAND can demonstrate they function primarily as in-world currency and utility tools, with real user activity, token sinks that consume supply, and economic mechanics that tie value to use rather than speculation, regulators have a path to treat them as digital tools or collectibles rather than securities.
The pressure this creates is real. Token sinks, crafting systems, and consumable mechanics are no longer just good economic design. They are regulatory evidence that the token does something rather than just appreciating. The cleaner the utility case, the more defensible the non-security classification.
The CLARITY Act stalling in the Senate means this remains agency guidance rather than statute for now. Agency guidance can be reversed by a future administration. The classification MANA and SAND might earn under the current framework is real but not yet durable in the way a law would be. That uncertainty is itself a risk anyone building on these platforms needs to price in.
The crypto bills moving through Congress right now are the most significant attempt yet to answer a question that has been open since Bitcoin's early days: who is actually in charge of digital assets, and what rules protect the people holding them?
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