Trump's SEC Pick Paul Atkins Announces New Approach to Cryptocurrencies, But Gets Few Questions
Former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins testified at his confirmation hearing alongside Trump's nominee for the OCC post, Jonathan Gould, although cryptocurrencies were not a central topic of discussion.
Jesse Hamilton | Edited by Nikhilesh De on 27 Mar 2025, 16:27 UTC
What you should know:
- Two key nominees for the future of cryptocurrency regulation — Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission and Jonathan Gould to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — have appeared before the Senate for confirmation hearings.
- Cryptocurrency has risen several times, but Atkins has not faced any serious doubts about his views on oversight of the industry and the legislation that could guide the SEC in its management.
Paul Atkins, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the agency, has pledged that the agency will take a different course on cryptocurrencies than it has in the past four years, though he was not asked about the global digital asset landscape at his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
Now that Trump has formed his cabinet, the White House is working hard to shepherd key agency leaders through the Senate confirmation process. While much of the news about cryptocurrencies is currently coming from the administration and Congress, it is those who run the regulators who will ultimately create the rules the industry will have to follow.
Atkins is seeking to succeed former Chairman Gary Gensler, whose tenure at the agency made him the most visible opponent of the digital asset sector. But Trump’s nominee is already positioning himself as a sharp counter to Gensler, who has criticized the industry’s history of fraud and argued that current securities laws are sufficient to treat much of the space as if it were actively violating registration requirements.
“My top priority as chairman is to work with my fellow commissioners and Congress to create a robust regulatory framework for digital assets through a reasonable, consistent, and principled approach,” Atkins said in his prepared testimony Thursday.
Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, said Atkins “will bring long-overdue clarity to the digital asset issue.”
However, even before the hearing began, Atkins came under fire from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and the committee's top Democrat, who expressed doubts about his ability to remain impartial in the digital asset sector, where he has worked as a consultant.
At the hearing table next to Atkins, Gould made his case for the appointment to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the nation’s key bank regulator. The agency has played a major role in the digital asset sector’s campaign against U.S. banking oversight, which has pressured banks to keep the industry at bay. Cryptocurrency companies and insiders have fought to maintain banking relationships and argued that regulators have created these “de-banking” tensions.
