"Crypto dad" debuts. Can the SEC under Paul Atkins reshape the US crypto market?

The author of this article is Jason Jiang, a senior researcher at OKG Research

On April 22, 2025, Beijing time, Paul Atkins was officially sworn in as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The "free market" regulator, nominated by President Trump and confirmed in the Senate by 52 to 44, is different from the law-enforcement-oriented regulatory approach of his predecessor Gary Gensler during his term. As soon as he took office, he made it clear that building a clear and open digital asset regulatory framework will be the "priority."

In the Gensler era, the US SEC launched a large-scale law enforcement action against the crypto industry, treating almost all tokens as securities, leaving entrepreneurs, investment institutions and trading platforms in uncertainty and risk for a long time. Against the backdrop of this high regulatory pressure and fuzzy policy intertwining, Atkins's takeover is regarded by the industry as the "restart moment" of US crypto regulation.

From traditional regulators to " crypto veterans "

Paul Atkins is a typical "Washington-Wall Street Shuttler". He graduated from Worford College and Vanderbilt University Law School. In his early years, he worked at Davis Polk, a top law firm on Wall Street, engaged in securities issuance and mergers and acquisitions, and has accumulated international experience in Paris. He entered the SEC in the early 1990s and served as senior consultant to two former chairmen, mainly responsible for issues such as corporate governance and market structure reform.

In 2002, Atkins was appointed as SEC commissioner by then President Bush. Before leaving office in 2008, he was known for promoting transparent regulation and opposing bureaucratic inflation, and was one of the representatives of the US free market supervision concept. In 2009, he founded Patomak Global Partners, a compliance consulting agency, to provide compliance strategic services to financial institutions and crypto enterprises.

In the process of founding Patomak, Atkins has established in-depth connections with the crypto industry. Atkins serves as co-chair of the Token Alliance, a subsidiary of the American Digital Chamber of Commerce, leading the formulation of best practices for token issuance and crypto platforms. He has also provided strategic consulting for well-known crypto companies such as Securities and Anchorage Digital, and has invested in crypto asset fund Off The Chain Capital. Financial disclosures show that its household crypto-related assets are as large as millions of dollars.

These experiences make Atkins one of the few representatives among traditional regulators who have both theoretical knowledge and practical experience in the crypto industry. However, Atkins' encryption background has also caused controversy. Before the FTX crash, Patomak provided compliance advice services, and this experience became one of the controversial points in its nomination process. Despite this, the Senate Majority’s ultimate support is not only a recognition of its professional ability, but also a reflection of the loosening attitude towards crypto-regulation in the American political climate.

Regulation should not be the enemy of innovation

Unlike the regulatory path of the "litigation governance industry" during the Gensler period, Atkins made a clear statement on both the hearing and the first day of his inauguration: The SEC's mission should shift from "defining rules through law enforcement" to "guiding compliance through rules."

He believes that regulation cannot be at the cost of suppressing innovation, nor can the market be confused for a long time in the legal gray area. "Regulation should not be the enemy of innovation" but should provide a "rational, clear, and enforceable compliance path", which is his first key signal to the entire crypto industry.

Atkins criticized his predecessor's "one-size-fits-all approach to treating cryptocurrencies as securities", which led to the market falling into a vicious cycle of "being prosecuted first, then finding rules." In contrast, he tends to build a more flexible and adaptive regulatory classification system based on dimensions such as token function and decentralization, and pointed out that "the United States should not lose its competitive advantage in the Web3 era due to regulatory uncertainty." This is highly consistent with the years of calls from the crypto community, developers and even some institutional investors.

Since the Senate voted to confirm Atkins will serve as chairman on April 9, a series of actions by the SEC have made the crypto industry clearly feel the changes in the regulatory trend, and some industry insiders have dubbed the regulators becoming "crypto dads":

1. Start a dialogue with the crypto industry . In order to fill the regulatory gap and reach industry consensus as soon as possible, the SEC Cryptocurrency Working Group plans to hold four public roundtables from April to June this year, covering key issues such as exchange supervision, custody specifications, DeFi compliance and asset tokenization, and invite industry representatives, consumer organizations and policy researchers to discuss regulatory paths. This is the first time in the history of the SEC , a systematic policy consultation mechanism on crypto issues, showing that the SEC under Atkins hopes to adjust policy priorities in a timely manner by listening to the industry voice, replacing confrontation with " cooperation " and adjusting policy priorities in a timely manner.

The first roundtable on April 11 was "Tailed Supervision for Crypto Trading", which explores how to adjust rules to adapt to crypto exchanges under the framework of the existing securities laws.

2. Large-scale settlement of secret litigation cases or withdrawal of lawsuits . After Atkins took office, the SEC's attitude towards existing crypto litigation cases has been significantly softened. On April 11, the SEC reached a long-term litigation settlement with Ripple, with the fines cut to $50 million, and XRP was not clearly defined as a securities. At the same time, lawsuits on multiple projects such as Nova Labs were directly revoked, which the industry calls the "regulatory amnesty wave." This "correction" attitude sends a clear signal: the SEC will retroactively correct the abuse of crypto law enforcement lawsuits during its predecessor, hoping to resolve legacy disputes through negotiations and provide the industry with a policy breathing space.

3. The encryption disclosure standards are initially formed . Also on April 11, the SEC Enterprise Financing Department issued non-binding information disclosure guidelines on the issuance of crypto tokens, covering project architecture, token functions, governance design, development progress and other contents. This is the first time the SEC has attempted to provide an "expected disclosure list" for crypto projects, marking that its regulatory logic has shifted from "post-law enforcement" to "pre-guidance". "Crypto Mom" ​​Hester Peirce commented that this reflects the SEC's willingness to "take the lead" under the new chairman's rule rather than letting the industry explore and move forward on the brink of danger.

These shifting measures show that the SEC under Atkins is moving from the past "high-pressure control" to "transparent co-governance". Rather than saying that this is a regulatory return, it is a regulatory return, returning to the origin of serving the market, protecting investors and encouraging innovation.

3 major issues will become priority for Atkins ' new

encryption policy

After sending out the initial friendly signal, the industry has generally paid attention to the next key policy trends of the SEC under the leadership of Atkins. The current market generally focuses on three major directions:

1. Accelerate the legislative work of stablecoin . Trump has repeatedly publicly supported the launch of a standardized dollar stablecoin to increase U.S. Treasury bond demand and consolidate the dollar's dominance in the digital age. Atkins has expressed support for the GENIUS Act proposed by Senator Bill Hagerty, establishing basic frameworks such as licenses, reserves, and information disclosure for stablecoins, and recommending state-level exemptions for small and medium-sized projects. During its tenure, the SEC may gradually withdraw from its direct intervention in "non-security stablecoins" (such as USDC) and hand over its regulatory focus to the unified management of banking regulators or legislative bodies. This will remove key obstacles for the legal and compliant large-scale use of stablecoins, and will also help promote the construction of the digital dollar ecosystem in the United States.

2. The registration path for compliant exchanges is expected to be opened . In the past two years, exchanges such as Coinbase have faced SEC lawsuits because of "not registered to operate securities trading platforms." Atkins advocates setting up a special compliance framework for such platforms, such as allowing registration as an “alternative trading system” (ATS) or “crypto-specific brokerage firm.”

According to the SEC insider, several current withdrawal actions are in preparation, and the Coinbase case may also be "concluded without war", opening up space for subsequent compliance paths. More importantly, the SEC may no longer try to unify supervision, but coordinate with CFTC, FinCEN and other institutions to formulate a multi-institutional regulatory framework with a clear division of responsibilities to provide a more predictable environment for exchanges and their users.

3. The token recognition standards will be reshaped . One of the most difficult issues in the current crypto market is what tokens belong to securities and what kind of goods or non-regulated assets. In the past, the SEC widely used Howey tests to determine that tokens are securities, while Atkins prefers to classify and evaluate the token function (practicality vs investment) and decentralization. He supports the "safe harbor proposal" proposed by Commissioner Hester Peirce, which is to give entrepreneurial projects a three-year grace period and complete the construction of distributed networks without worrying about the SEC taking legal action. This means that the dual-track system of "start-up exemption + long-term compliance" may take shape, promoting the project coin issuance and financing ecosystem to be active again. At the same time, Atkins supports the "issuance as disclosure" principle, that is, as long as the token project provides complete information disclosure at the time of issuance and has a transparent governance structure, it can operate within the compliance framework. This may greatly alleviate the compliance pressure of the project party and attract a new wave of token financing projects to return to the US market.

In addition, the newly established internal research group of SEC is re-evaluating the attributes of mainstream public chain assets. Among them, if tokens such as XRP and SOL are excluded from securities recognition, more varieties will be opened for crypto ETFs. In fact, on the first day of Atkins' inauguration (April 10), the SEC has quickly approved options trading of Ethereum spot ETFs, which provides investors with more channels to participate and sends a signal of support for the financialization of crypto assets.

Conclusion

Paul Atkins' takeover represents a new regulatory cycle in the crypto industry in the United States. If these key links of stablecoin compliance channels, exchange registration system, and token legal recognition can break through during their term of office, they will reshape the United States' position in the global crypto governance system. More importantly, changes in regulatory logic will send a stronger institutional signal: it is not that there is less supervision, but that supervision is clearer, more negotiated and more constructive.

For the crypto industry, this is a hard-won respite and a restart that requires more rationality and self-discipline. But Atkins is not a "lazy-faithist". He reiterated in his many speeches that the SEC will continue to crack down on illegal acts such as fraud, insider trading, and market manipulation; the real change lies in letting the industry know "whether the road to compliance lies."