Many executives representing high-profile cryptocurrency companies in the United States have weighed in on President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the feedback has mostly been positive.
In a Dec. 5 Bloomberg interview, Bitwise Asset Management general counsel Katherine Dowling said former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins was a “great choice” to lead the regulatory body.
She hinted that he could be less “antagonistic” to members of Congress than Gary Gensler, the current SEC chair who will resign on Jan. 20.
“We’re very much looking forward to a person who can come in, hit the ground running, work with the other commissioners, and hopefully also have a dialogue with the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and with lawmakers so in the new Congress we can get some clarity, we can get some forward motion: stablecoin bill, market structure,” said Dowling.
Atkins, who served as an SEC commissioner under President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2008, was a regulator before the advent of cryptocurrencies. If Trump follows through with nominating him, Atkins would still need to be confirmed by lawmakers in the US Senate, where Republicans will hold a slim majority in 2025.
Coinbase and Ripple weigh in on Atkins pick
Dowling wasn’t alone in offering praise for the potential SEC chair. Many crypto users and company heads had been criticizing Gensler for years, saying he was regulating the industry through enforcement actions rather than clear rules of the road.
“Paul Atkins at the helm of the SEC will bring common sense back to the agency,” said Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse in a Dec. 4 X post.
Ripple was one of the first targets by the SEC against a crypto or blockchain firm. The commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple in December 2020, alleging the company used the XRP token as an unregistered security to raise funds.
A judge found Ripple liable for $125 million in August, but the SEC is appealing the judgment. It’s unclear how the case may move forward under a new SEC chair.
Related: SEC lawsuits will ‘quietly go away’ after Gensler steps down: Pantera
Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal also lauded Trump’s pick of Atkins, saying it was “sorely needed.” The cryptocurrency exchange is facing a lawsuit filed by the SEC in June 2023 over unregistered securities.
Coinbase CLO offering his opinion of Donald Trump’s pick to head the SEC. Source: Paul Grewal
The CEO of Patomak Global Partners and one of the board of advisers for the blockchain advocacy group Digital Chamber, Atkins has been involved with crypto industry players, but it’s unclear how he may approach digital assets as SEC chair. In a February 2023 interview, he suggested the SEC could be “more accommodating” to crypto firms to encourage the industry to grow in the US.
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