What Trump’s SEC Chair Pick Paul Atkins Means for Crypto
Atkins’ nomination is a breath of fresh air for the crypto crowd, who felt Gensler dragged his feet on policy.
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It’s a crypto miracle just in time for the holidays.
After months of speculation, President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to nominate Paul Atkins as the next Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman and is hoping he can help revamp the cryptocurrency industry. Atkins, who previously served as an SEC commissioner under George W. Bush’s administration, is the current CEO of the consulting firm Patomak Partners and serves on the board for the Digital Chamber, a blockchain technology advocacy group. He was an advisor to the Reserve Rights Foundation, a stablecoin platform that aims to create currencies that will never inflate.
Experts say Atkins could bring a lighter touch to regulation and make digital assets more mainstream. He is also expected to collaborate with the crypto industry, instead of hampering it.
“You’re going to see a very bipartisan effort to pass digital asset legislation,” said Carl Fornaris, partner at law firm Winston & Strawn. “It might benefit sub sectors like stablecoin issuers, and it could also provide clarity on what the SEC can and cannot regulate.”
Move It, Or Lose It
Many in the crypto crowd felt current SEC Chair Gary Gensler dragged his feet on policy and vehemently targeted the crypto industry. While Gensler is knowledgeable about crypto, he was slow to work with the industry and had to be strong-armed into approving the first Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs earlier this year, said Davis Richardson, managing partner at Paradox Public Relations.
“The contempt wasn’t even particularly aimed at the Biden administration, just this one guy,” he told The Daily Upside. “He had a lot of indecision toward the sector, which can oftentimes be the biggest killer.”
Hold On a Second. It’s not just the crypto industry that is welcoming Atkins’ nomination. Advisors and wealth managers can also benefit from an era of deregulation and less enforcement, Fornaris said. Any pending SEC rules are likely to be paused when the next administration takes over, he added, citing how the Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network similarly froze all rulemaking efforts on Day One of Trump’s first term.
“The whole approach was to make the government more efficient and reduce regulation, and that will be an even greater emphasis under Trump 2.0,” he said.
Oh Wait, Nevermind. Atkins is also likely to curtail rules set by Gensler’s SEC that would require companies to disclose climate-related risks that could impact their bottom lines, said Vijay Raghavan, Forrester senior analyst. Walking back those rules would “diminish interest in ESG considerations and the movement to expand awareness of responsible investing,” he told The Daily Upside.
