U.S. SEC’s Atkins Posts Agency’s Near-Term Agenda Jammed With Crypto Efforts

As he’d signalled, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins is loading his agency’s policy agenda with crypto work, according to the program disclosed on Thursday, revealing what the chairman called a “new day” for the sector.

“The agenda covers potential rule proposals related to the offer and sale of crypto assets to help clarify the regulatory framework for crypto assets and provide greater certainty to the market,” Atkins said in a statement. “A key priority of my chairmanship is clear rules of the road for the issuance, custody, and trading of crypto assets while continuing to discourage bad actors from violating the law.”

The rest of the agenda points to a campaign to relax constraints on securities firms and rethink the so-called “consolidated audit trail” system meant to track U.S. securities transactions on a live basis. Digital assets represent the leading area of new regulation in an agency leadership otherwise leery of imposing new rules, the agenda indicates.

The agenda puts an April target for proposing a rule on the offer and sale of crypto assets, including exemptions and safe harbors, and in the same timeframe intends to recommend another rule amending the agency’s Securities Exchange Act rules to handle the trading of digital assets on “alternative trading systems” (ATS) and national securities exchanges.

Federal regulators routinely file these agendas for public scrutiny, even though the schedules they set often prove to be unreliable. They’re instead widely seen by policy observers as a broad indicator of an agency’s direction.

Well before setting crypto regulations, however, the SEC and its sister markets watchdog, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued a joint statement earlier this week saying the registered platforms they oversee can handle spot crypto trading and should come to them for further clarity on how to approach it.

The SEC has embarked on what Atkins, who advised crypto firms in the private sector, called “Project Crypto” to enable the industry’s leap into mainstream finance. The CFTC has been running what Acting Chairman Caroline Pham calls a “crypto sprint” to the same end. Both routinely say they’re working quickly to try to meet President Donald Trump’s expectations that the U.S. support the industry sufficiently that it becomes the global leader in this technology.

Read More: SEC’s Atkins: ‘Most Crypto Assets Are Not Securities’ Under Bold New Vision