The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is leading the agency in a direction that differs from the previous "enforcement-first" policy towards the cryptocurrency industry.
According to an interview published by the Financial Times on Monday, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated that the SEC is moving away from the aggressive enforcement measures commonly seen during President Biden's and former SEC Chairman Gensler's tenures.
Atkins mentioned that U.S. cryptocurrency companies will receive preliminary notifications regarding compliance violations before any enforcement actions are taken by the agency.
"You can't just barge into their offices and say, 'We caught you; you violated the technical regulations,'" Atkins said, noting that companies can now receive preliminary notifications first.
These remarks indicate a clear divergence from the enforcement-driven agenda led by his predecessor, Gensler, who faced criticism for promoting the SEC's "enforcement-led regulation" approach towards the cryptocurrency industry.
Under Gensler's leadership, the SEC filed lawsuits against some of the largest companies in the industry, including the lawsuit against Ripple Labs in 2020, Terraform Labs in 2022, and the lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken in 2023. These cases have resulted in the industry incurring billions of dollars in legal fees.
Commenting on Gensler's past enforcement actions, Atkins stated that there have been "valid reasons to criticize the SEC" in recent years, as these decisions "lacked a precedent basis" or "predictability."
"They always act first and ask questions later," Atkins added, suggesting that the regulatory process should allow for a transition period of up to six months before taking enforcement actions against companies.
He also expressed reservations about Gensler's previous assertion that most cryptocurrencies should be considered securities. According to Atkins, most tokens do not fall under the purview of securities law, and he plans to support the trading of tokenized securities, granting them the same legal rights as the underlying assets.
The SEC subsequently established a special cryptocurrency task force to communicate with the industry on regulatory issues and terminated several investigations and enforcement actions in the cryptocurrency space that were initiated during Gensler's tenure.
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