President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trump said Atkins, the CEO of Pomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner, was a “proven leader for common-sense regulation.” In the years since leaving the SEC, Atkins has spoken out against excessive market regulation.
“He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that respond to investor needs and provide capital to make our economy the best in the world.” He also recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are critical to making America greater than ever before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The commission oversees securities markets and investments in the US and is currently led by Gary Gensler, who has led the US government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. Gensler, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, announced last month that he would step down from office on Trump’s inauguration day – January 20, 2025.
Trump, once a crypto skeptic, had promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of Bitcoin. Since his victory, money has flowed into crypto assets. The value of Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, surpassed $100,000 on Wednesday. And shares of crypto platform Coinbase have risen more than 70% since the election.
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal congratulated Atkins in a post on X.
“We appreciate his commitment to balanced regulation of the U.S. securities markets and look forward to his new leadership at (the SEC),” Grewal wrote. “It is urgently needed and cannot come a day too soon.”
Congressman Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, said he feared Atkins would not adequately regulate cryptocurrencies as SEC chairman.
“He would probably take the position that no cryptocurrency is a security and therefore no exchange that deals in crypto is a securities exchange,” Sherman said. “The possibility of defrauding investors would be significant.”
Atkins began his career as a lawyer and has a long experience in the financial markets sector, both in public and private law firms. In the 1990s, he worked on the staff of two former SEC chairmen, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt.
His work as SEC commissioner began in 2002, at a time when the fallout from corporate scandals at Enron and WorldCom had left Wall Street and its federal regulators in turmoil.
Atkins was widely considered the SEC’s most conservative member during his time at the agency and was known for his sturdy free-market leanings. As commissioner, he called for greater transparency and analysis of the costs and benefits of fresh SEC rules.
He also emphasized investor education and increased enforcement efforts against those who steal from investors over the Internet, manipulate markets, engage in pyramid schemes and engage in other types of fraud.
At the same time, Atkins rejected the stiff penalties imposed on companies accused of fraudulent behavior, arguing that they were not a deterrent to crime. He caused a stir in the summer of 2006 when he said that the practice of granting stock options to executives before breaking news that was certain to raise stock prices did not constitute insider trading.
U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Atkins has the experience needed to “restore trust in the SEC.”
“I am confident that his leadership will bring clarity to the digital asset ecosystem and ensure that U.S. capital markets remain the envy of the world,” McHenry wrote on X.
Atkins already has some experience working for Trump. During Trump’s first term, Atkins was a member of the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum, an advisory group of more than a dozen CEOs and business leaders who provided input on creating jobs and accelerating economic growth.
In 2017, Atkins joined the Token Alliance, an organization that advocates for cryptocurrencies.
Crypto industry players welcomed Trump’s victory, hoping he would enact the legal and regulatory changes they had long advocated for.
Trump himself launched World Liberty Financial, a fresh cryptocurrency trading company with family members.
