Trump picks crypto backer Paul Atkins as new Securities and Exchange Commission chair

President-elect Donald Trump said he had picked former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins to head the agency, according to a posting he made on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Atkins served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008. He’s now the CEO of consulting firm Patomak Global Partners which has clients across the financial and cryptocurrency industries.

Atkins is known as a strong backer of cryptocurrencies, and could be in place to help shape key regulations for an industry Trump has avidly courted should he be confirmed by the Senate.

“Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations,” Trump said in his Truth Social posting. “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.”

Current SEC Chair Gary Gensler has announced he would step down on Jan. 20, when Trump is due to be inaugurated. Gensler had widely antagonized the crypto industry by going after key players with aggressive enforcement actions.

New dawn for crypto?

Atkins had been seen recently as one of the leading contenders to replace Gensler, sparking excitement across the crypto industry.

Prices of cryptocurrencies have surged since Trump’s election, with bitcoin almost surpassing $100,000 for the first time ever before pulling back.

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

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

His selection of Atkins, a well known crypto backer, could now help propel the industry further.

Atkins has expressed reservations before about the enforcement actions taken by the SEC against the domestic crypto industry, saying it could drive the industry abroad instead of developing it in the U.S.

But crypto critics are alarmed

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

Cryptocurrencies have a history of intense volatility and have been racked by frauds and scams. They are also believed to be widely used for illegal activities such as the drug trade as well as terrorism.

The industry has also seen spectacular implosions. FTX, once the world’s biggest crypto exchange, collapsed in 2022 and its founder and CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of fraud for stealing billions in customer money. Bankman-Fried was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Nonetheless, Trump had been widely expected to appoint crypto-friendly regulators.

The crypto industry could also benefit from a Republican Congress, with the GOP set to control both the House and the Senate with narrow majorities. The makeup of Congress was shaped in part by the millions of dollars the industry spent to help defeat lawmakers seen as crypto skeptics, like Democratic Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, the current Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, who lost his reelection bid in November.