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Donald Trump has appointed cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins as chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, sending cheers across the financial industry as it hopes for a more favorable regulatory climate under the new administration.
“Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations,” Trump he said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. Atkins “also understands that digital assets and other innovations are critical to making America greater than ever before.”
In another major business move, the president-elect also nominated Gail Slater, a top aide to Vice President-elect JD Vance, to head the Department of Justice antimonopoly department.
Atkins and Slater must be confirmed by the US Senate. They did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Industry participants welcomed the nomination of Atkins, who served as SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008, and later founded Patomak Global Partners, a risk management consulting firm.
“We look forward to working with him to rebuild public confidence in the agency,” said Chris Iacovella, president and CEO of the American Securities Association.
The financial industry has had a fractious relationship with the SEC’s current chairman, Gary Gensler, who has pursued a broad rulemaking agenda and tough stance on enforcement, putting pressure on traditional Wall Street players as well as cryptocurrency companies.
Gensler has targeted many of the biggest crypto companies with lawsuits and has refused to draft rules for digital assets, arguing that many tokens are securities and existing laws are clear enough. He labeled the sector as a “wild west” full of fraud and risk for investors.
Atkins is expected to adopt a friendlier approach to cryptocurrency. He said in a podcast last year that America’s fragmented financial regulatory network is driving up costs and risks creating rules that stifle innovation.
In relation to cryptocurrencies, Atkins said the SEC “should be there with its ears to the ground so that . . . adapt to non-criminal activities and then allow markets to flourish, because if that challenges the incumbents and helps reduce costs for investors and for people trying to raise capital, I think that’s why we have financial markets.”
Crypto advocates applauded the nomination. “The past four years under Gensler have been an unrelenting crusade against crypto,” said Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association. “Paul Atkins will offer a fresh perspective, based on a deep understanding of the digital asset ecosystem.”
Atkins was also critical of the US audit watchdog, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which regulates accounting firms and is overseen by the SEC. During his previous tenure at the SEC, Atkins advocated for cuts to the organization’s budget and opposed some of the rules it imposed on auditors.
Lynn Turner, a member of the PCAOB’s investor advisory group, said the appointment was probably the worst outcome for the watchdog, “short of an atomic bomb hitting their building.”
If Atkins can pursue a softer agenda, Slater is expected to maintain the tough antitrust stance championed by progressive Biden appointees who have focused particularly on big tech.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that Big Tech “has run amok for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector” while “using its market power to crush the rights of many Americans, as well as the rights of Little Tech!”
“I was proud to fight these abuses in my first term, and our Justice Department’s antitrust team will continue that work under Gail’s leadership,” he added.
Her nomination underscores Trump’s embrace of a new generation of Republican populists led by Vance. They seek to use antitrust law to address pressing social issues, including free speech and the alleged censoring of conservative voices on online platforms.
The Financial Times previously reported that Slater was the main candidate for the DoJ role, currently held by Jonathan Kanter.
An Oxford-educated lawyer, Slater was an adviser to Julie Brill, a former Federal Trade Commission commissioner appointed by Barack Obama.
Additional reporting by Stephen Foley and Jennifer Hughes
