Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul S. Atkins announced Thursday (July 31) the launch of “Project Crypto,” an SEC-wide initiative to modernize securities rules and regulations to enable financial markets in the United States to move on-chain.
In a speech delivered Thursday at the America First Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., Atkins said the project will be the agency’s contribution to President Donald Trump’s efforts to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.”
“Project Crypto will help ensure that the United States remains the best place in the world to start a business, develop cutting-edge technologies and participate in capital markets,” Atkins said. “We will reshore the crypto businesses that fled our country, particularly those that were crippled by the previous administration’s regulation-by-enforcement crusade and ‘Operation Chokepoint 2.0.’”
As part of the initiative, SEC staff will draft rules for crypto asset distributions, custody and trading for public notice and comment; the SEC will use interpretive, exemptive and other authorities to remove “archaic rules and regulations”; and the SEC will “revamp its rulebook.”
Comparing the “digital asset revolution” to earlier advances in the capital markets like the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, the ticker tape machine and Regulation Alternative Trading Systems, Atkins said the U.S. must do more than keep pace with the latest revolution.
“We must drive it,” he said.
“As we advance these priorities, I look forward to working with my counterparts across the administration to make the United States the crypto capital of the world,” Atkins said. “This represents more than a regulatory shift — it is a generational opportunity.”
The speech came a day after the White House released a long-awaited report on digital asset policy developed by the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets.
That group was formed by a Jan. 23 executive order and tasked with developing a federal regulatory framework governing digital assets and considering the creation of a “national digital asset stockpile.”
In its report, the Working Group wrote that “much of the industry’s corporate infrastructure migrated offshore to avoid the unfavorable regulatory environment. This approach nearly eliminated the opportunity for the United States to lead in this revolutionary technology…”