The Securities and Exchange Commission made its biggest pro-crypto move yet this week. On Thursday, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins launched “Project Crypto,” an overarching roadmap of the Commission’s approach to regulating cryptocurrency.
The aim of the project, according to Atkins, is to make the United States “the crypto capital of the world” by onshoring crypto asset distributions.
Atkins hopes to do so by updating the Commission’s rules and regulations regarding on-chain software systems, encouraging experimentation with new technology like “tokenization,” and opening the door to the reclassification of most crypto assets as an investment contract rather than a security. The plan also aims to encourage decentralized finance initiatives that operate without intermediaries and “super apps” that integrate payment ability with other functions like social media (one example being Elon Musk’s vision to transform X into an “everything app”).
It’s a huge departure from the SEC’s previous approach to crypto under former chairman Gary Gensler, who became crypto industry’s public enemy number one due to his strict regulatory approach.
Atkins made sure to hammer that point in.
“It’s a new day at the SEC and we are picking up the gauntlet and the challenge that President Trump has laid down,” he told CNBC on Friday.
Trump’s push for crypto legitimization
Gary Gensler’s approach to crypto as SEC chairman was less “laissez-faire” and more focused on compliance. In an effort to protect investors, Gensler’s administration insisted that crypto tokens are overwhelmingly considered securities and are therefore covered under existing legal framework and require full disclosure and SEC registration. That made it especially rough for decentralized finance initiatives. Under Gensler, the SEC launched a wave of lawsuits against crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, claiming that they operated outside the law.
The crypto industry deemed this to be regulatory overreach and claimed that it was pushing American crypto innovation overseas.
In comes Trump, who ran on a pro-crypto campaign in the 2024 presidential election even though he was once a skeptic himself, claiming that crypto was “a disaster waiting to happen” back in 2021.
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