Related Articles
The White House also set a March 1st deadline on the deal for banking industry and crypto firms to reach ‘fairly stablecoin yield’, clearing up the way for the Clarity Act, the market structure legislation intended to put the industry on firmly legal basis in the U.S.” S, meanwhile.
But seven months ago, the House passed a passage of Clarity “It’s just seven month since I have been passing by this House.” All are unmet, and the Senate has set many deadlines to move it. No deal The latest deadline also blew by with no deal as it was blowing by the new deadline.
The crypto industry has been obsessed with legislation as the next catalyst, if it is the only way to achieve the long-needed regulatory clarity in the world’s largest economy.
But legislation is not the only path.
These law, which provides authority for the market regulators of both Securities and Exchange Commission (and also the Commodity Futures Trading Commission), are broad and flexible. They are now acting agencies that act as those agencies do.
Gary Gensler is erased by his time in fresh legislation, which would protect against future Garygenalers. As Gensler had appointed a hostile one to be devil it, President Donald Trump created an industry-friendly chair for the ceremony that was being used as ‘boon and blessed by its own friend’.
And while everything Trump has done vis-à-vis crypto that has created political shivers, it may be that all he really had to do was pick the right chief for the SEC and I think a lot of him.
Paul Atkins is Trump’s longtime who knows how to write rules that will be tough enough for legal challenges. In turn, Trump then appointed one of Atkins’ deputies as chairman for the other investment firm — The CFTC — so that rulemaking is well-balanced across markets. A second FTX-like implosion, which is not yet possible, means all the industry has to do so that this up does not screw it up.
It’s crypto’s game to lose.
Not his first rodeo
In the 2000s Paul Atkins served six years at SEC, where he was in three chairs as an under-fire . He has since been an adviser to the Chamber of Digital Commerce and to Securitize.
He was sworn in April 2025 by his . Several weeks after speaking at an SEC office event, he said the agency has authority to give rulemaking in the crypto industry it needs to operate.
Earlier, before a dozen or so reporters asked him whether he had to wait until Congress wrote market-structure legislation before acting. His staff can and would act with or without new legislation, he repeated “It is the right thing to do so.”
Atkins confidently promised action, like a regulator who understands the scope of his existing authority.
Harmonization
And Atkins will be aligned with the chief of the SEC’s sister agency, the CFTC.
Gensler was never aligned with Rostin Benham, the CFTC’s former chief chief. Benham kept asking Congress to act, a phrase Gensler continued to say was not necessary.
Benham clearly did not think every coin was a security, but Gensler thought only Bitcoin was clear of his scrutiny. They were not harmonized as they were.
And for the most part, to effectively regulate and give founders confidence, it’s important that when and if an electronic asset can move from SEC jurisdiction to the CFTC’.
One of the most important reasons that Atkins hasn’t already posted draft rules for public comment is that he wanted to do so in concert with the CFTC. But Trump switched gears to appointing ‘chair chair for that agency’ and the new helmsman Michael Selig was not sworn in until the end of December.
A day later, it would be surprising if we learn Atkins persuaded the president to change course on appointments for CFTC chair so that both agencies work well together.
Hopefully we will have an official memorandum of understanding between the two agencies in which to define responsibilities soon. In 1981, this arrangement will be similar to the historic ShadD-Johnson agreement of a called “Shakd” Johnson.
The new sheriff
I think Project Crypto will have submitted draft rules by this fall each written in consultation with the other – before their respective commissions.
By next Spring, those rules will have been amended based on public comments and, most likely, finalized.
This will be the first administration to actually write rules with decentralized financial networks in mind.
Similarly, it should be possible (for example) for exchanges such as Kraken, Coinbase and Crypto under new rules. In a bid to finally confirm that all their operations are registered with an agency and under state supervision, com to say.
Similarly, new businesses should raise funds with token sales of . Those tokens will likely be some of those that would have been the rights entrepreneurs did not enjoy during the regulation-by-enforcement period, such as being able to pay revenue.
The industry will likely have two or three years to grow before re-rolling back the work of Atkins and Selig (because it will require both a Senate appointment process and sycological rulemaking process) as long as the rules are conservative enough to survive court challenges.
Fait accompli
We all know crypto has always been an industry that welcomes newcomers but the president’ family did not do anything digitally, launching memecoin and a stablecoIN as well as bitcoin miner. But those activities may have been enough to rpedo any hope of fulfilling the crypto lobby’s plans for this session of Congress.
But while Congress dithers, agency staff are writing rules.
Earlier today, agency leaders said that several crypto polices are coming–whatever arrangement they devise will eventually be law anyway should the SEC and CFTC work together. After all, Congress codified the Shadd-Johnson agreement in the early 80s with a consensus of “Shakd” Johnson.
In a way that the lobbyists may ultimately be given the law they want, but only after crypto has gone mainstream anyway without Congress – Trump’s decision to oppoint Paul Atkins would have been enough for giving the industry sufficient legal whitespace to reach its potential.
Thanks for reading Donald Trumps crypto legacy in two words: Paul Atkins
