New York – Securities and Exchange Commission is still looking to formalize an “innovation exemption” for companies to build on digital assets and other innovative technologies in the United States, potentially as soon as the end of the quarter, agency chairman Paul Atkins said.
While he acknowledged that the current government’s shutdown had “Hamstrung” SEC’s ability to make progress in regulation, Atkins said that working with this exception is still his priority for the end of the year or the first quarter of 2026, he said at a futures and derivatlov report event, hosting the law firm Cat Cat Muchin Rosenman LLP in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday.
The SEC chair opened with one of his now-public re fromins: that crypto is “job one” and the agency has become a pro-innovation body that wants to encourage developers and entrepreneurs to build in the US
“As you know, we have at least had four years of oppression of this industry and with a result of pushing things abroad instead of getting innovation,” said Atkins under a panel with former SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes.
The Agency intends to initiate a decision by the end of 2025 or during the first quarter of 2026, he said, depending on what happens to the ongoing US government’s shutdown.
“We get to see where it goes but I have confidence [we’ll] be able to do so, ”he said on the panel.
Putting formal decision-making in crypto would finally put the agency in addition to the regulation-for-enforcement used in the previous administration or informal guidance and staff notes that were used so far in it.
During a question and question with journalists afterwards, he said that the exception, which he pressed to last month, is something he hoped to have “squared away.”
“It’s one of the highest priorities to try to get it because I want to be welcome to innovators and make them feel like they can do something here in the US so they don’t have to flee to some foreign jurisdiction.”
The ongoing shutdown of the government inhibits the agency’s work, Atkins said.
While there are “essential tasks” that the agency can take on is regulation – including crypto regulation – break.
Market structure bill
Atkins praised the work of the Congress to adopt laws relating to Cryptocurrencies under his panel, pointing to the stablecoin-focused genius law, although he noted that SEC did not have a major role with this bill.
“Market structure is a question there on the bill, which is why we get to see where it goes,” he said. “I’m optimistic.”
Speakers in a previous panel were less confident that a market structure bill will come out of Congress, at least by 2025 ends.
Summer Mersinger, CEO of Industry Lobbyist Group Blockchain Association and a former commissioner at the Community’s Futures Trading Commission, said she gave the bill a 51% or 52% chance of going this year.
Greg Xethalis, a partner and attorney at Venture Firm Multicoin Capital, said legislators should be appreciated for their work on the bill, while Coinfunds Chris Perkins said he did not think the bill would happen.
Stableecoins
Genius Act, the first major cryptophocused bill to be law in the United States, has begun to produce preliminary results, with regulators at the Treasury Department Publishing proposed rules for the stableecoin sector earlier this year.
Xethalis said much of what will happen next from a developer front is plumbing.
“Now that we have the rules of Treasury, written to the Genius Act, we will see a Cambrian explosion of people who are actually starting to use these things on a daily basis,” he said, pointing to Visa, who integrates USDC into their payment growth tool as an example of how people can already be “indirect US[ing] Crypto. “
Similarly, Mersinger said stableCOin use could continue to grow and point to collateral in fund transfers and other types of financial contracts such as use of use.
