Updated: April 22nd, 12:35am UTC: This story has been updated to include details of Paul Atkins, sworn as a chair for the SEC.
Paul Atkins is formally sworn in as the 34th chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The April 21 announcement comes nearly two weeks after Atkins’ position was confirmed by the US Senate with 52-44 votes on April 9.
Atkins, who served as an SEC committee member between 2002 and 2008, said:
“Back to the SEC, we are pleased to work with fellow commissioners and institutional experts to maintain a fair, orderly, efficient market and protect investors in order to promote our mission to promote capital formation.”
“Together we work to ensure that the US is the best and safest place in the world to invest in and do business.”
Atkins is widely expected to lead the SEC, which is more crypto-friendly than former chairman Gary Gensler under the Biden administration.
His confirmation was reportedly delayed due to several financial disclosures that must be filed as a result of his marriage to the billionaire family.
These financial disclosures reportedly included crypto-related investments worth up to $6 million, including crypto-related custody platforms Anchorage Digital and Blockchain Tokenization platforms.
Atkins took over Chairman Mark Weda, who helped the SEC establish a cryptographic task force in January, aimed at strengthening trust between the committee and industry players.
The SEC has also rejected several cryptographic probes and enforcement actions taken by the Gensler-led SEC in recent months, including cases that include Coinbase, Consensys, Gemini and Uniswap.
Related: The crypto industry has not experienced regulatory capture – lawyers
The Atkins-led SEC currently has a fund application trading on more than 70 crypto exchanges to determine this year, Bloomberg reported on April 21.
“From XRP, Litecoin, Solana to Penguins, Doge, 2x Melania and everything in between, everything,” Bloomberg ETF analyst James Balchunas said in the X-Post.
“It’s going to be a wild year.”
The recent surge in Crypto ETF filing reflects a “spaghetti cannon approach” from publishers testing products approved by the new SEC leadership, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Sefert said in February.
“Publishers try to launch a lot of different things and see what sticks,” Seyfert said.
Magazine: SEC U-turn on Crypto leaves important questions unanswered
