Trump Names Former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as His Pick for Chair of the Agency

President-elect Donald Trump named Patomak International Companions founder and CEO Paul Atkins as his choose to steer the U.S. Securities and Change Fee on Wednesday.

Atkins, co-chair of the Digital Chamber’s Token Alliance and an adviser to Reserve Rights, beforehand served as a commissioner on the company beneath former President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2008.

The previous supervisor visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, earlier this week however was initially reluctant to tackle the function, CoinDesk reported Tuesday.

In his announcement, Trump known as Atkins a “confirmed chief.”

“He believes within the promise of sturdy, progressive capital markets that reply to investor wants and supply capital to make our financial system one of the best on the earth,” he stated on his social media platform Fact Social. “He additionally acknowledges that digital belongings and different improvements are important to creating America larger than ever earlier than.”

Not like a few of Trump’s different picks, which appeared designed as aggressive makes an attempt to shake up their departments, Atkins is an outdated guard determine within the American securities world. It’s unlikely that he’ll cut up the company the place he beforehand labored as a commissioner and with which he has remained related in his consultancy work. His firm employs a number of former officers of the SEC and the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee.

He’ll succeed outgoing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who beforehand introduced he would step down at midday on January 20, when Trump is sworn in because the forty seventh US president.

Below Gensler, the regulator has taken quite a few enforcement actions towards crypto corporations, together with some based mostly on the concept some crypto exchanges function concurrently as unlicensed exchanges, clearinghouses and brokers. By doing so, Gensler drew the ire of a lot of the crypto trade.

It stays to be seen how Atkins will view these circumstances.

Jesse Hamilton contributed reporting.