In a recent interview, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman discussed the importance of establishing a crypto market structure legislation and the regulatory agency’s effort to implement a rule exception for digital asset firms in the coming months.
The SEC Chief affirmed that “a lot is going on” for the agency, including working on rulemaking and setting an innovation exemption for crypto firms by the end of 2025. Following the successful “Crypto Week” in July, he revealed that the Commission was exploring some regulatory changes to boost innovation.
The rule exemption would allow crypto firms to quickly launch products without having to comply with “burdensome prescriptive regulatory requirements that hinder productive economic activity.”
Instead, crypto firms would “be able to comply with certain principles-based conditions designed to achieve the core policy aims of the federal securities laws,” Atkins detailed in a late July speech.
During the interview, the SEC Chairman also discussed the regulator’s ongoing collaboration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the potential consolidation of the two agencies, with Atkins as the leader.
The regulatory agency, intended to be a five-person, bipartisan commission, is down to only acting Chair Caroline Pham, who is also expected to depart from the agency once a permanent chief is appointed.
“I have my hands full right now,” Atkins said, shutting down the idea. “We are working hand in glove right now with the CFTC, so harmonization is what I envision. People have been discussing this issue for a long time, and I think we’re at a point now, especially when we look at the changes in the digital asset area, that it’s incumbent on the two agencies to work hand in glove.”
What we have to really focus on is that over the years, there’s been (…) jockeying for position, and we don’t need regulatory turf battles. The field is littered with bodies of would-be products (…) that over the years have been torpedoed by the lack of certainty as between what falls within the SEC’s realm and what’s the CFTC’s realm.
Ultimately, he anticipated that the two regulatory agencies would work on joint rulemaking to “try to future-proof these rules and the relationships from some rogue regulations in the future.”
