SEC Chairperson: New Year Will Be "Moving Soon" on Cryptocurrency Priorities

Paul Atkins, chairperson of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), said the agency would move quickly ahead with a number of crypto-related priorities as it enters the new year. "All the seeds we planted next year will start to sprout and grow," Mr. Atkins told the Blockchain Association's policy summit in Washington DC, referring to the many proposals already on his desk. "Then we can harvest the fruit."
Atkins is charting an ambitious regulatory course to clarify the SEC's crypto stance. Last month, the new chairperson unveiled plans for a "token taxonomy" to classify which digital assets are securities. At the same time, he launched "Project Crypto" to update the SEC's regulatory framework for digital assets and push for an "innovation exemption" to accelerate the approval process for crypto products.
That path contrasts with the crypto policies of Gary Gensler, the former SEC chairperson, who took a hard line during the Biden administration, frequently launched enforcement actions against large crypto companies, argued that most tokens were securities, and was criticized for "substituting enforcement for rulemaking".