Securities and Trade Fee Chairman Paul Atkins speaks to reporters after giving opening remarks at a roundtable with the SEC’s Crypto Activity Drive on the Securities and Trade Fee headquarters on April 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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WASHINGTON — SEC Chair Paul Atkins mentioned on Friday that innovation within the crypto trade “has been stifled for the final a number of years,” and that adjustments are sorely wanted.
“The market itself appears to point that the present framework badly wants consideration,” Atkins mentioned at a roundtable held by the SEC’s just lately launched Crypto Activity Drive.
The half-day session on the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., is a notable occasion for Atkins, and comes simply weeks after the SEC formally dropped its long-running lawsuit in opposition to Ripple, a symbolic finish to a four-year battle between the regulator and the crypto trade. Crypto leaders, regulators and authorized specialists have been available to primarily focus on the difficulty of custody, or the safeguarding of digital property.
Atkins delivered the opening remarks alongside SEC Commissioners Caroline Crenshaw, Mark Uyeda, and Hester Peirce. The group is trying to set the tone for a brand new period of crypto regulation, one which seeks to alter the method from adversarial to collaborative.
Atkins advised reporters on the sidelines of the session that he was open to a broad reassessment of crypto-related guidelines.
“We have now, I feel, a big gambit of skill to function,” he mentioned. “It is at all times good to have Congress’ enter, and if there is a statute to again up what we’re doing, then all the higher — however I feel we’ve got ample room to maneuver.”
The crypto trade was essential to President Donald Trump’s election victory in November, pumping cash into his marketing campaign in addition to supporting congressional candidates considered as pleasant to its efforts, following a tumultuous 4 years throughout Joe Biden’s presidency.
President Trump has since taken quite a few steps to pay the trade again, signing an govt order to create a strategic bitcoin reserve and pardoning three co-founders of the BitMEX international cryptocurrency change in addition to Silk Street founder Ross Ulbricht.
The SEC has adopted go well with. In January, it rescinded Workers Accounting Bulletin 121, a rule established beneath prior Chair Gary Gensler that handled crypto holdings as steadiness sheet liabilities for banks and successfully blocked institutional adoption. Peirce celebrated the rollback on X on the time writing, “Bye, bye SAB 121! It isn’t been enjoyable.”
Atkins mentioned on Friday that the SEC would proceed taking motion in opposition to overseas corporations that did not abide by U.S. guidelines, together with delisting Chinese language companies if essential.
And in February, the SEC issued steering saying it would not deem most meme cash securities beneath U.S. federal legislation.
That is a giant boon to the president and his members of the family, who’ve a number of profitable crypto initiatives in the marketplace. President Trump’s private meme coin — $TRUMP — was introduced simply earlier than the inauguration in January and at the moment has a market cap of about $2.7 billion. The mission’s web site claims that 80% of the token provide is held by the Trump Group and affiliated entities.
When requested whether or not the president’s actions undermined the White Home’s credibility on crypto coverage, Atkins mentioned, “I’ve no touch upon any of that.”
The Friday roundtable included executives from companies together with Anchorage Digital Financial institution, Constancy Digital Property, Kraken, BitGo, Exodus, Fireblocks and Copper Applied sciences. They outlined the authorized and operational roadblocks to providing crypto custody options that adjust to federal securities legal guidelines.
Crypto custody refers to how the digital property are held. Some buyers want to custody their very own holdings with non-public keys saved on {hardware} wallets, or “chilly storage,” versus utilizing crypto brokerage agency — “scorching wallets” — and different third-party choices.
An absence of clear regulatory pointers makes it troublesome to know which choices are authorized, and in addition creates challenges to offering safeguards in a market that is seen its share of hacks.
“A regulatory method ought to acknowledge the variations throughout certified custodians exist for some crypto property,” Peirce mentioned, at Friday’s occasion. “However for others, self custody may be the safer possibility.”
The SEC is weighing revisions to its controversial custody rule, first proposed beneath Gensler, which many within the crypto trade argue was unworkable for blockchain-based property. The proposal stalled, and Friday’s roundtable indicators renewed curiosity find a compromise.
Nonetheless, tensions stay between the necessity for investor protections and the sensible realities of securing decentralized property.
“The Fee should grapple with these points,” Peirce mentioned. “If we fail to take action, we forestall regulated entities from serving their prospects.”
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