A new day at the SEC: Chair Atkins keynote address at the tokenization roundtable

He stated that the SEC will act not through ad hoc enforcement actions but rather through “its existing rulemaking, interpretive, and exemptive authorities.” He identified three areas of focus: issuance, custody, and trading.

Issuance

Chairman Atkins said he plans “to establish clear and sensible guidelines for distributions” of securities crypto assets, criticizing what he called the SEC’s prior “head-in-the-sand” turned “shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later” approach. Citing the SEC’s previous modification of registration forms to accommodate asset-backed securities and REITs as an example, he criticized the SEC’s more recent refusal to do so for crypto assets and reliance on regulation through enforcement.

Chairman Atkins highlighted the SEC staff’s April 2025 guidance on disclosure obligations for registrations and offerings of crypto assets, and the staff’s view that certain meme coins, stablecoins and proof of work mining activities do not implicate the federal securities laws. While Chairman Atkins expects the staff to continue to provide clarifications regarding other types of distributions and assets, he stated that staff guidance is “extremely temporary” and formal SEC action under its current authority should be the ultimate tool for regulation.

Custody

Chairman Atkins advocated for “greater optionality” for market participants. He offered several options for achieving this goal, including possible amendments to the investment adviser and investment company custody rules to enable advisers and funds to engage in self-custody under certain circumstances. Other options included providing clarity on the types of entities that are eligible to serve as custodians under the Advisers Act and Investment Company Act, “reasonable” exceptions from the custody qualification requirements to accommodate certain common practices within crypto asset markets and repealing and replacing the “special purpose broker-dealer” framework with what he described as a more rational regime. The Staff has already withdrawn two of its statements regarding custody in the past two weeks—one of which questioned whether a state-chartered trust company could serve as a qualified custodian under the Advisers Act custody rule and the other (issued jointly with FINRA’s Office of General Counsel) of which articulated concerns about compliance with SEC and FINRA rules in connection with broker-dealers’ custody of digital assets.

Trading

Finally, Chairman Atkins proposed that broker-dealers and national securities exchanges be granted greater trading flexibility with a broader variety of products on their platforms in response to market demand. Among his suggestions were modernizing the alternative trading system regulatory regime to better accommodate crypto assets, providing further guidance or rulemaking enabling the listing and trading of crypto assets on national securities exchanges and a “super app” that offers trading in securities and non-securities via a single platform. Notably, Chairman Atkins expressed interest in exploring whether conditional exemptive relief would be appropriate for broker-dealers, national securities exchanges and non-registrants that seek to bring new products and services to market that may otherwise not be compatible with current SEC rules and regulations.

Impact and actions

As stated in his address, Chairman Atkins is ready to “keep pace with innovation” and “make the United States the best place in the world to participate in crypto asset markets.” His speech demonstrates the urgency with which he and SEC Staff are approaching clarity for crypto asset participants. Further, Chairman Atkins provided concrete examples of how the SEC can act to encourage growth in crypto asset markets using its current authority under federal securities laws. Importantly, he appears dedicated to achieving his policy goals through Staff guidance, formal rulemaking, and exemptive authority—not enforcement actions.