Paul Atkins has taken the oath to formally become chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which returns Mark Uyeda to his previous role as a Republican Commissioner after three busy months of service as the agency’s stand-in chief.
Atkins permanently replaces the former chair, Gary Gensler, who the crypto industry had widely seen as its chief antagonist in the U.S. government. But Uyeda and fellow Commissioner Hester Peirce have already put the SEC on a path toward greater acceptance of digital assets, forming a crypto task force, shedding a long list of industry enforcement actions and gathering industry representatives at a series of crypto roundtables. The agency’s staff also released statements announcing various corners of crypto as outside its securities jurisdiction.
The new chairman said he’s honored by the “trust and confidence” Trump and the U.S. Senate placed in him and is pleased to start work with the other commissioners.
“Together we will work to ensure that the U.S. is the best and most secure place in the world to invest and do business,” he said in a statement.
Atkins, who was confirmed by the Senate as President Donald Trump’s nominee earlier this month, had previously served as an SEC commissioner and ran a Washington consulting firm focused on compliance and policy matters. In addition to his Wall Street ties, Atkins had also taken on advisory roles with crypto firms.
The Senate easily approved Atkins with a 52-44 vote, though the Senate Banking Committee had advanced his confirmation along party lines. All the panel’s Democrats opposed the nominee, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who criticized Atkins’ previous tenure at the SEC from 2002 to 2008, tying it to the 2008 global financial crisis.
The SEC is facing a considerable crypto agenda, potentially made more complicated by Trump’s personal business interests in the industry, including in World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin and in memecoins (such as the president’s own $TRUMP). Its eventual crypto regulations, though, will largely be directed by future legislation that’s now a priority in Congress.
Atkins’ tenure will begin with an incomplete commission, with just four of its five members in place. And the sole Democrat — Caroline Crenshaw — is occupying an already expired term. The White House hasn’t yet moved to fill the two Democratic slots on the commission, and other regulators have seen Trump attempt to strip Democratic members of their positions.
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