NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Securities and Exchange Commission is close to proposing a “regulatory crypto” bill that would deepen its approach to overseeing the crypto industry and draw lines between transactions that may be securities and those that are not, the agency’s head said Monday.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the commission’s new crypto reg is before the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, meaning it is one step away from being made public. This rulemaking is focused on the Securities Act of 1933 and will address fundraising and startup exemptions, among other things, he said Monday at an event hosted by Vanderbilt University and the Blockchain Association.
He told CoinDesk after his question-and-answer session that the SEC also intends to issue its long-awaited innovation exemption soon.
“We’d love to have reactions and everything else,” he said. “It’s not a rule as such, but of course we need to know how it works and whether people have problems with it or not.”
One aspect of this exemption, he said, is that it would not disadvantage incumbents and focus exclusively on startups.
“We want people to really experiment inside [that] frames,” he said.
Midway clock
At several points during his lecture, Atkins pointed to the role of Congress, saying his agency’s rulemaking process was well underway regardless of what Congress might do.
“I think we have enough of a runway now, even despite what might happen in the midterms — although I really still want a friendly Congress — they can throw spikes on the road in front of our tires, but they’re not going to really slow us down.”
Atkins also said the audience should “be engaged in this upcoming election,” pointing to Sen. Bernie Moreno as an example.
“Getting Congress to really go off the rails isn’t going to do any of us any good, and it’s going to raise a lot more questions going forward because then people are just like, ‘oh my god, maybe it’s another passing phase,'” he said. “We need to make sure your friends are in Congress. I think you saw how that really paid off in the last election.”
