Atkins Poised to Take Reins at SEC This Week
SEC staffers are preparing for the new chair to be sworn in this week
Welcome to the Monday edition of the Crypto In America newsletter. Will Paul Atkins take his place as head of Wall Street’s top cop this week? SEC staffers think so. Plus, the state of Oregon is suing Coinbase, reviving claims that echo the Securities and Exchange Commission’s now-withdrawn lawsuit.
Trump’s pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, was confirmed by the Senate in a 52–44 vote on April 9, and industry watchers have been eagerly awaiting his official start date.
But the wait may soon be over, according to two SEC staffers who told Crypto In America that they’re expecting Atkins to be sworn in and begin his tenure as head of the agency this week.
Antsy crypto retail investors have taken to X in recent days, questioning why the newly confirmed Atkins didn’t assume office immediately after the Senate vote. But D.C. insiders say the delay is nothing out of the ordinary, pointing to post-confirmation paperwork and the Easter holiday slowdown.
Atkins is expected to take a vastly different approach to the role than his predecessor, Gary Gensler, whose tenure was marked by an industry-wide crackdown on the $2.7 trillion crypto market and progressive initiatives like climate disclosure rules for public companies.
The pro-crypto lawyer has said a top priority of his chairmanship will be establishing a regulatory foundation for digital assets built on a “rational, coherent, and principled approach” and, as he put it, “getting politics out of how the SEC interacts with the financial markets.”
Oregon Attorney General Revives SEC’s Case Against Coinbase
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, is picking up where the SEC left off and pursuing the exchange over charges of operating an unregistered securities exchange and broker-dealer. The state, which filed its 171-page lawsuit against Coinbase on Friday, says the U.S.’s largest crypto exchange violated Oregon state law by selling unregistered securities to state residents.
The move comes just two months after the SEC dropped its case against Coinbase, a decision Rayfield’s office described as evidence of a growing “enforcement vacuum” in the wake of federal regulatory rollbacks under the Trump administration. Rayfield compared the risks of undisclosed crypto investments to undergoing a medical procedure without knowing the risks.
Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal blasted the lawsuit as “political jockeying,” and an “embarrassing waste of Oregon taxpayer dollars,” while insisting that the vast majority of digital assets offered on Coinbase’s platform are not securities, a position he says even the SEC has recently come to accept.
Grewal says the lawsuit ‘directly undermines constructive policymaking happening in DC’, where lawmakers are working to craft a federal regulatory framework for crypto.
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What’s Going on in Washington This Week?
Easter recess continues for Congress, but the SEC will soldier on with its third crypto policy roundtable on Friday.
The event will focus on custody issues, featuring two panels — one on broker-dealer and wallet custody, and another on investment adviser and investment company custody. Panelists are set to include representatives from Fidelity, Kraken, Anchorage Digital and Fireblocks, as well as a handful of law firms.
If Paul Atkins is sworn in this week, he could make his first roundtable appearance on Friday.
On the crypto conference circuit
Crypto asset manager Bitwise will host the first Bitcoin Standard Corporations Investor Day in New York City on Thursday. The event will focus on companies that buy and hold Bitcoin, and feature speakers such as MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor and The Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous.
An event hosted by DC DAO, Crypto Capitol: EthDC II, will take place Thursday in Washington, D.C. The confab is billed as a one-day, builder-centric blitz where policy meets protocol.
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