Donald Trump nominates cryptocurrency ally Paul Atkins as SEC chairman
WASHINGTON ― President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he is nominating Paul Atkins, a pro-business former federal regulator who is friendly toward the budding cryptocurrency industry, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trump announced the nomination of Atkins, who served as a Republican SEC commissioner under former President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2008, in a post on Truth Social. Trump called Atkins a "proven leader for common sense regulations."
The SEC serves as an independent oversight agency that is meant to protect Wall Street investors from fraud and misconduct, while promoting fairness and efficiency in the market. The SEC is expected to swing toward deregulation after four years of SEC clashes with Wall Street under outgoing chairman Gary Gensler, a President Joe Biden appointee, who has said he will step down in January.
Atkins, 66, is the CEO and founder of Patomak Global Partners, a financial consulting firm with clients that include cryptocurrency firms and exchanges.
"He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World," Trump said in a statement. "He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before."
Atkins, well-known among Republican business circles, is co-chairman of the Digital Chamber's Token Alliance, which has advocated for Bitcoin and other digital currencies by fighting SEC regulations that target the industry.
Under Gensler, the SEC took on the crypto industry, suing Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and others, alleging that their failure to register with the agency violated SEC rules.
Atkins, appearing on a pro-crypto podcast last year, said the financial system contains "lots of ways in which the rules impede financial innovation."
"So that's one reason why the SEC should be there with its ear to the ground to figure out, OK, which way are things moving, and let's try to accommodate activity that's not criminal and enable markets to flourish."
Contributing: Reuters
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