Trump’s SEC Chair Paul Atkins Says Agency Is ‘Mobilizing’ to Update Custody, Other Guidance

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at custody rules for digital assets, including how broker-dealers, asset managers and investment advisers can deal with cryptocurrency transactions, its head said Friday.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins, speaking about his recently announced Project Crypto on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria” program, said the agency was “mobilizing at the SEC all our different divisions and offices” to implement President Donald Trump’s crypto working group’s recommendations to make the U.S. a more crypto-friendly nation. This includes adjusting rules “that have been around for 90 years or so,” he said.

“We don’t want the crypto assets to be on some flash drive in somebody’s drawer,” he said on Friday. “They need to be in a secure place … the reason for doing all this and addressing these various regulations is to provide some certainty for people.”

The SEC’s work will be based on the legislation passed by Congress, he said, pointing to the already-signed GENIUS Act and existing market structure legislative efforts.

“Our goal is to get clarity and certainty,” he said. “It will be undergirded by whatever comes out of Congress but I believe that we have authority to move forward in these areas and provide that certainty and clarity for people.”

Asked about a district court ruling on debit card interchange fees, Atkins said it could support real-time or instant payment networks, and moving toward instant payment settlements “would be ideal,” he said.

This type of payment could be bolstered by using a blockchain, he said, though he also said that the system could need to have some sort of delay built in to address mistakes.

“The longer that it takes to have clearance on some of the transactions, the more risk there is in the system for something to go wrong, some black swan event,” he said.

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