SEC new chairman Paul Atkins: will fully support Crypto Assets innovation and provide clear regulatory rules.

Paul Atkins, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), highlighted the importance of innovation at the recent SEC Speaks conference, and specifically emphasized that he will support innovation in the cryptocurrency space to provide clear regulatory rules for the market and investors. (Synopsis: SEC New Chairman Paul Atkins' First Speech, Reveals Three Directions of Crypto Regulation: Issuance, Custody, and Trading) (Background Supplement: Paul Atkins officially becomes the new chairman of the SEC, and the next step is to approve XRP, SOL. and other altcoin ETFs, open to Ethereum staking? Paul Atkins, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), highlighted the importance of innovation at the recent SEC Speaks conference, and specifically emphasized that he will strongly support the development of the cryptocurrency space in order to provide clear regulatory rules for the market and investors. This article is derived from the original text of Paul Atkins' speech, which is compiled and organized below. Thanks to Cicely for your kind introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to attend the SEC Speaks conference for the first time in my capacity as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), even though I have been a regular at the event for the past 15 years. This event has had some ups and downs over the past few years, but I will ensure that it grows steadily and becomes a valuable and comprehensive public outreach to this institution. I would like to thank the staff of the Practising Law Institute for organizing this meeting. I would also like to thank: SEC employees, who each year have the opportunity to publicly share their work over the past year and discuss expectations for the coming months; Commentators who participated in the panels, whose questions and observations helped to focus the discussion on key issues and ideas that could be overlooked within the SEC; Audience members, you had the opportunity to interact with each other and the panelists; Visitors who participate online can also participate in this event through the convenience of virtual means. Innovation and the SEC Today I want to talk about innovation, and in particular, the SEC should not be afraid of innovation, but should embrace and promote it. The nature of markets is evolutionary, and they are dynamic because of humans. When humans encounter a problem, they solve it with innovation, because there is a need, and the solution pays off. In a free society, human creativity and a competitive spirit rise in response to challenges, and Adam Smith's "invisible hand" provides incentives beyond pure altruism. All this is a good thing. Over the decades, including my tenure as an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008 and earlier as a staff to two SEC presidents, the SEC has fostered innovation and, regrettably, sometimes stifled it. Fortunately, innovation, in other words, progress, ultimately wins. Let me take a few minutes to review some recent history. At the end of the 1960s, the United States experienced a huge bull market. The daily trading volume doubled to about 12 million shares, which may sound trivial today, has overwhelmed paper-based delivery and settlement systems and transfer agents. As paper stock certificates piled up and had to be carried by staff on carts between Wall Street and brokerage firms in the financial district of the United States, efficiency deteriorated rapidly. Investors pay the price for this inefficiency, as securities are often misplaced, misplaced, lost, or delayed in delivery, resulting in a surge in closing failures and many undercapitalized brokerages being dragged down by unfinished deals. It was expedient to shorten the daily trading hours, and later even suspended trading every Wednesday to allow the company to process the documents. The New York Stock Exchange is even closed two days a week just to catch up with paperwork. This collapse caused by the old system is called the "Paperwork Crisis." As William Dentzer, the first CEO of the Depositary Trust Company (DTC), put it: "The paperwork crisis has led to delays or complete failures in processing of hundreds of millions of dollars, misdistributed dividends to investors, and brokerages to fail." But to its credit, the SEC was very proactive at the time and understood that it should promote electronic transactions and bookkeeping. But how? The SEC holds roundtables and works with industry to use legislative power and persuasion to promote innovation and technological improvements in back-office transaction processing. Eventually, the DTC was established as an industrial cooperative and later developed into a depository trust and clearing company (DTCC). The SEC's active efforts have led to the computerization of securities. That bull market was inevitably replaced by a long bear market. Many brokerages failed this time, not because of insufficient back-office processing capacity, but because of a collapse in revenue. The SEC worked with Congress and industry to pass the Securities Investor Protection Act in 1970, establishing the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) to provide insurance coverage in the event of a brokerage failure. This is a positive innovation for investors, and the SEC plays an important role in this. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, U.S. stock exchanges and other institutions proposed an innovative solution to the SEC's problem of procedural transactions that determined the 1987 market crash. They proposed a tool for trading baskets of stocks, known as S&P Depository Receipts, which is a portfolio of shares traded as a fund. This was the earliest exchange-traded fund (ETF). However, the proposal dragged on for years within the SEC as various questions were raised by the department at the time. Then-chairman Richard Breeden explicitly asked department heads to "solve problems" and give them limited time. He stressed the need for immediate completion. The SEC eventually did. SPDR was introduced in 1993. Some within the SEC are concerned about whether the market will embrace the innovation. In fact, sponsoring companies need to work hard to convince institutions to buy the product. But within three years, it had grown to $1 billion. Chairman Breeden's view is that we can't be arbiters for the market to decide. I think we can all agree that innovation in SPDRs and ETFs is a boon for investors. During Arthur Levitt's chairmanship in the mid-to-late 1990s, proprietary trading systems gained popularity, controversially shifting trading from exchanges to over-the-counter. Chairman Levitt believes that the SEC needs to provide regulatory flexibility for electronic markets to foster innovation. As a result, the Alternative Trading System Rules (Reg ATS), passed in 1999, allow alternative trading systems (ATS) to be regulated like brokers rather than exchanges. Entering the new century, the market came up with another innovation: gold funds, the first commodity ETF. The concept was discussed back and forth across departments within the SEC, even across to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). While it took some time, innovation eventually triumphed and investors gained the option of investing without actually holding gold. Cryptocurrency Innovation Speaking of today, the cryptocurrency market has lingered in the SEC's blurred zone for years. In the beginning, the SEC adopted an "ostrich mentality" and seemed to want cryptocurrencies to disappear on their own. Later, it turned to "shoot first and then question" law enforcement. The so-called "welcome visit" is actually often to get a summons to go home. ...