SEC Chair Explains How New Rules Entice Crypto Firms Home

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins is framing the agency’s newly proposed Regulation Crypto Assets as a deliberate attempt to win back the crypto companies that left the United States over the past four years.

Atkins has cast the plan’s two capital-raising exemptions as only part of a broader argument he has made for months. Heavy-handed enforcement, not unclear rules, pushed crypto builders overseas, he says.

Blaming Years of Regulation by Enforcement

Atkins blamed years of aggressive enforcement for choking off legitimate crypto fundraising. Clear guidance, not court fights, was what founders needed, he argued.

He argued the old approach forced crypto assets to comply with securities rules dating to the 1930s. Those rules, he said, were never built with tokens in mind.

“In fact, in the past, it actively undermined capital formation with regard to this asset class in the form of regulation by enforcement and disingenuous offers to ‘come in and register.'”

Paul Atkins, SEC Chairman, in a statement

‘We Can’t Fool Ourselves’ on Where Investors Put Their Money

Atkins told Fox Business the new proposal is meant to reassure founders his agency chased away. He said the past administration’s four-year run pushed innovators to develop products and raise money abroad.

His core argument is practical rather than nationalistic. Investors can already move money across borders with a few clicks. Blocking them from doing that legally at home only pushes activity further away.

“We can’t fool ourselves. American investors in the age of the internet can send their money anywhere. So we need to make sure that they can do it here in the United States under United States law.”

Paul Atkins, SEC Chairman, to Fox

Still Pressing Congress for the CLARITY Act

Atkins says rulemaking alone will not settle the matter. He wants Congress to pass the CLARITY Act. That bill would divide crypto oversight between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Only legislation, he argues, can lock in durable rules that a future SEC cannot simply reverse.

Whether Congress or the SEC’s own rulemaking moves first, Atkins is not choosing. He frames both as part of the same push to bring capital home.