The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance stated in its staff guidance that staking on proof-of-stake networks would receive similar regulatory treatment as proof-of-work mining, which the agency previously determined does not fall under securities laws

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Node operators and validators, custodians, delegates, nominators and entities staking assets either on their own, staking directly with a third party or staking on behalf of an asset's owners fall into this bucket, the staff statement said. In this, the SEC seems to suggest that staking will be treated identically to mining, the consensus mechanism securing networks like Bitcoin, which the SEC clarified also did not implicate securities laws in a similar staff statement last month.