President-elect Donald Trump said he has named former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins to lead the agency.
according to a post he published on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Atkins served as SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008. Today he is the CEO of the consulting firm Pomak Global Partners, which serves clients in the financial and cryptocurrency industries.

Atkins is known as a strong supporter of cryptocurrencies and could help craft key regulations for an industry that Trump has eagerly courted if he is confirmed by the Senate.

“Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations,” Trump said in his Truth Social post. “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that respond to investor needs and provide capital to make our economy the best in the world. He also recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are critical to making America greater than ever before.”

Current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has announced he will resign on January 20, when Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated. Gensler had largely angered the crypto industry by pursuing major players with aggressive enforcement actions.

New dawn for crypto?

Atkins was recently considered one of the leading candidates to replace Gensler, causing excitement throughout the crypto industry.

Cryptocurrency prices have risen since Trump’s election, with Bitcoin nearly topping $100,000 for the first time before retreating again.

Just a few years ago, Trump called cryptocurrencies a “fraud” and told Fox Business they were “potentially a disaster waiting to happen.”

But he experienced a conversion. During this year’s election, Trump promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” by bringing in friendly regulators and ending tough enforcement actions against the sector under President Biden. His family also has financial interests in a crypto-related company called World Liberty Financial.

His choice of Atkins, a well-known crypto supporter, could now help propel the industry further.

Atkins has previously expressed reservations about the SEC’s enforcement actions against the domestic crypto industry, saying they could drive the industry abroad instead of developing it in the US

But crypto critics are alarmed

However, Trump’s support of the crypto industry has alarmed critics of the sector.

Cryptocurrencies have always been subject to high volatility and have been plagued by scams and scams. They are also believed to be commonly used for illegal activities such as drug trafficking and terrorism.

There were also spectacular implosions in the industry. FTX, once the world’s largest crypto exchange, collapsed in 2022 and its founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of fraud for stealing billions of dollars in customer funds. Bankman-Fried was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Still, it was widely expected that Trump would appoint crypto-friendly regulators.

The crypto industry could also benefit from a Republican Congress, as the GOP will control both the House and Senate with slim majorities. The makeup of Congress has been shaped in part by the millions of dollars the industry spent to defeat lawmakers seen as crypto skeptics, such as Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the current chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, in November lost his re-election.