Paul Atkins Shakes Up Crypto: The SEC’s Latest Plans Will Light Up Wall Street 😂🚀

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On a day awash with the dreary drizzle of Washington, Paul Atkins—whose brow now seemed more thoughtful than tyrannical—stood at the SEC’s oft-lamented Crypto Roundtable, clutching the keynote like a peasant at his first harvest. With an air of grandstanding born in the thickets of regulation, he named, as if blessing a newborn calf, the key pillars of his vision: issuance, custody, and trading.

Last April’s roundtable saw Atkins utter little more than the required pleasantries—one wondered if he suffered existential dread or merely a lack of coffee. Today, however, he spoke as if inspired by Gogol’s devils: emboldened, surprisingly witty, and—most shockingly for the assembled crowd—decidedly ambitious. Were these not the seeds of a true transformation for American crypto policy? (Or possibly a spectacular bureaucratic bonfire—who can say?)

Atkins: Or, the Unlikely Prophet of Tokenization

The SEC, with the gravitas only four roundtables can bestow, gathered to discuss “tokenization”—a word more fashionable in cafĂ© circles than farmhouses, yet here we are. Sounding suspiciously like a group project where half the members forgot their homework, statements arrived from all the leading dramatis personae.

There was Hester “Crypto Mom” Peirce, ever the optimist, who likely sees Tulips as a viable store of value. Caroline Crenshaw, dour as a Russian winter, brought skepticism in buckets. At the center stood Atkins, clutching his prepared remarks with the forced serenity of a man who has read War and Peace—twice—so you wouldn’t have to:

“In order for the United States to be the ‘crypto capital of the planet’ as envisioned by President Trump, the Commission must keep pace with innovation. Rules and regulations designed for off-chain securities may be incompatible with or unnecessary for on-chain assets and stifle the growth of blockchain technology,” he pronounced grandly, as if addressing a herd of particularly unruly cows.

Today’s appearance by Atkins marks his sophomore effort in crypto roundtabledom, a feat worthy of a medal or at least a commemorative mug. His speech had ballooned in length and ambition—why, it touched upon more fronts than Napoleon’s infamous Russian campaign (with, let us hope, a happier outcome).

Central to his theme: digital assets are no more TradFi than a bear is a ballet dancer—best not to force them into tights and expect a pliĂ©.

Atkins told his audience, with an earnestness known only to regulators and amateur chess players, that the SEC must “set fit-for-purpose standards for market participants.” With all the subtlety of a Tolstoyan matron, he laid out his threefold path:

First, Atkins championed the controversial right of crypto companies to issue securities contracts openly, like samovars placed brazenly in windows. The Howey Test, he complained, loomed over issuers like a distant but persistent aunt, and, shockingly, only four crypto companies have managed to dance through its bureaucratic hoops.

With the serene confidence of a man who has never lost his private keys, Atkins declared the SEC’s “broad discretion under the securities acts”—a phrase which here means “I’ll do what I like, thank you very much.”

Next, he eyed the matter of custody with the enthusiasm of a thrifty uncle eyeing a new set of lockboxes. He seeks to free up custody rules, reform the broker-dealer mafia, and let blockchain-based self-custody flourish—assuming Congress agrees, and pigs sprout wings.

His piĂšce de rĂ©sistance: trading. Not content with single firms, Atkins wants to see both securities and commodities partying together in glorious “pairs trading”—the regulatory equivalent of a Moscow soiree where Bolsheviks and tsars share vodka. If only Congress would be so obliging, the US market would shine anew—or at least blunder less spectacularly than its overseas cousins.

Summing up, Atkins unveiled a vision for the SEC so ambitious one suspects he’s swapped his bedtime Dostoyevsky for adventure novels. His address was not a mere speech, but a crypto manifesto—full of promises, grand talk, and, inevitably, a whiff of revolution (or at least spicy herring). Whether this shall herald a Golden Age or simply an age of more meetings, time—as always—will drag us to the answer. 😎

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2025-05-13 03:17