The Senate has voted (51- 45) to move forward with a vote on Paul Atkins’s nomination as the SEC chairman. Now, the upper chamber is set to hold a final vote on Atkins as soon as this evening.
This vote reduces discussion and speeds up the decision-making process.
Mark Uyeda has been the acting head of the SEC up until now. During his time in charge, the commission has been friendlier to crypto. Some of the things that have brought excitement to the crypto community are the settlement of the well-known Ripple case. He also eased the agency’s usual tough enforcement style.
However, since Atkins is confirmed, Uyeda’s time as acting chairman is almost up. To investors, it will be the start of a new era for SEC policy and direction.
The crypto community’s expectations
Atkins has a lot of experience with how regulations work because he was an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008. Investors see him as a pro-innovation and market-friendly person. Unlike his predecessor, Gary Gensler, who was strict on compliance, he is likely to be more flexible with digital assets.
This is because he leads the consulting business Patomak Global Partners, which he started in 2009. According to its website, the firm’s clients include banks, crypto exchanges, and DeFi platforms.
Atkins was a SEC commissioner, he pushed for policies that were good for the market and meant to boost economic growth.
Atkins has a reputation as a proponent of deregulation in financial markets. Many industry experts expect his leadership to prioritize reducing bureaucratic hurdles for companies while fostering innovation in the financial sector.
However, others are worried that deregulation could make the market less stable. Clearly, Trump is doing enough with new regulations that include tariffs and Musk’s DOGE, whichhave left the US unstable and close to a recession. Therefore, promising change for Americans is no longer exciting.
His policy could show that the SEC is moving toward finding a balance between new technologies and protecting investors. It has been a tough line for the agency to walk in recent years. This means that the way financial oversight works will change a lot because of his selection, especially when it comes to crypto.
Crypto users are very positive about what Atkins’ appointment could mean for upcoming crypto investment vehicles, such as the XRP, Solana, and Dogecoin ETFs. The new leadership could speed up the process of making rules clearer for these products. This could bring more institutional capital into the sector.
Dems find fault on Paul Atkins
Paul Atkins said that making rules for digital assets is a top priority during last week’s meeting to discuss the nominations.
On the previous panel on Thursday morning, the votes were 13 to 11. This allowed the nomination to move forward. However, all eleven Democrats on the committee were against it.
Top Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushed back against Atkins at that meeting because of his ties to the now collapsed crypto exchange FTX and President Trump’s possible conflicts of interest with the rise of his memecoin.
Several news outlets, including The Wall Street Journa l, say that FTX was a client of Patomak Global Partners and that Patomak Global Partners became an assistant to FTX in early 2022. At the end of 2022, FTX filed for bankruptcy. In November 2023, Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of the exchange, was found guilty of seven criminal charges.
Warren said, “He [Atkins] has spent his post-government career helping billionaire scammers like CEO Sam Bankman-Fried get even richer.”
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