Donald Trump nominates former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to chair agency 

Certain senators will be interested to learn about Atkins’s private sector business interests, specifically those related to crypto

article-image

24K-Production/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


After 16 years, Paul Atkins may be returning to the SEC. 

President-elect Donald Trump this afternoon officially named Atkins as his pick to chair the SEC. Atkins worked with SEC Chairs Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt in the 1990s as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He later served as an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008, beginning his term shortly after Enron’s accounting fraud scandal and leaving a month before Lehman Brothers collapsed. 

Since then, Atkins has worked as the CEO of his consulting firm, Patomak Global Partners. Its clients include banks, crypto companies and securities markets participants. 

Atkins is no stranger to Washington, or to the nomination process. It only takes a simple majority to confirm cabinet nominations, and with Republicans holding 53 Senate seats, Atkins should be a shoo-in. 

But I wouldn’t be surprised if Atkins faced some tough questions (likely mostly from Democrats) during his confirmation hearings about his private sector business interests — particularly those related to crypto. 

Why? Let’s rewind to 2022. 

Two years ago, thanks to a successful FOIA request from nonprofit whistleblower Empower Oversight, hundreds of emails between top SEC officials were released. Ripple, which at this point was about 16 months into its lawsuit with the SEC over the status of its XRP token, found these correspondences especially interesting. 

The emails, dated from May 2017 to December 2020, revealed that SEC officials were divided on which tokens violated securities laws, and which issuers should therefore be the targets of enforcement actions. They also highlighted a potential conflict of interest involving William Hinman, who served as director of the SEC’s division of corporation finance from May 2017 to December 2020.

Hinman was prohibited from engaging in SEC matters that could impact his former employer, law firm Simpson Thatcher, in which Hinman still held a financial interest while he worked at the SEC. Simpson Thatcher had a financial interest in Ethereum, which was (and has been since) spared from an SEC enforcement action. 

I covered all of this in much more detail for Blockworks back in 2022. But the bottom line is these emails were embarrassing for the SEC, which fought to have them sealed in its case against Ripple. The documents ultimately brought context and transparency to the lawsuit, and while they weren’t enough to toss the case entirely, they did help Ripple secure its partial win in the summary judgment. 

So, given this history, I’d imagine certain senators — many of whom have advocated against perceived “pro-crypto” legislation in the past — will be interested to learn more about which companies Atkins has been involved with and what, if any, his financial exposure is. 

We’re months out from confirmation hearings, though. And Atkins has yet to make a public statement regarding his nomination (he also has not responded to Blockworks’ request for comment), so there is much more information to come. We’ll be following along closely.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates (2).png

Research

This reports analyzes the competitive dynamics of the Solana DEX landscape, identifying sustainable moats per protocol. We also find that Raydium (RAY), Orca (ORCA), and Lifinity (LFNTY) are valued very similarly on a P/S basis and what this could mean for Meteroa's (MET) valuation, which is still pre-TGE.

article-image

With $800 million now flowing to creditors, some expect a market boost — yet many remain cautious after years of waiting

article-image

There’s more to do on Solana than memecoins, but the market isn’t seeing it that way

article-image

Galaxy’s Alex Thorn said that the saga, paired with TRUMP and MELANIA, could lead to “further destruction of the memecoin complex”

article-image

Anatoly Yakovenko in 2017 embarked on the technical challenge of solving blockchain’s scalability problem

article-image

Grayscale Investments has historically had a four-stage lifecycle for its products, but there’s an indicator this could be changing

article-image

Brian Quintenz and Jonathan Gould are two recent Cabinet nominees with ties to crypto