Trump’s SEC Chair Paul Atkins Says Agency Is ‘Mobilizing’ to Update Custody, Other Guidance

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is taking a look at custody guidelines for digital property, together with how broker-dealers, asset managers and funding advisers can cope with cryptocurrency transactions, its head stated Friday.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins, talking about his lately introduced Project Crypto on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria” program, stated the company was “mobilizing at the SEC all our different divisions and offices” to implement President Donald Trump’s crypto working group’s suggestions to make the U.S. a extra crypto-friendly nation. This contains adjusting guidelines “that have been around for 90 years or so,” he stated.

“We don’t want the crypto assets to be on some flash drive in somebody’s drawer,” he stated on Friday. “They need to be in a secure place … the reason for doing all this and addressing these various regulations is to provide some certainty for people.”

The SEC’s work might be primarily based on the laws handed by Congress, he stated, pointing to the already-signed GENIUS Act and current market construction legislative efforts.

“Our goal is to get clarity and certainty,” he stated. “It will be undergirded by whatever comes out of Congress but I believe that we have authority to move forward in these areas and provide that certainty and clarity for people.”

Asked about a district courtroom ruling on debit card interchange charges, Atkins stated it may assist real-time or on the spot cost networks, and shifting towards on the spot cost settlements “would be ideal,” he stated.

This kind of cost could possibly be bolstered through the use of a blockchain, he stated, although he additionally stated that the system may wish to have some form of delay inbuilt to handle errors.

“The longer that it takes to have clearance on some of the transactions, the more risk there is in the system for something to go wrong, some black swan event,” he stated.

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