U.S. SEC Chairman Details 2026 Cryptocurrency Policy Focus Areas

Author | Paul S. Atkins, Chairman of the SEC

Compiled by | Aki Wu Says Blockchain

This article is a transcript of the dialogue between SEC Chairman Atkins and Peirce at ETHDenver on February 18, 2026.

Original link: https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-peirce-021826-number-go-down-other-schadenfreude

Peirce: I am honored to share the stage with Chairman Atkins today. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that my remarks and those of the Chairman are personal statements made in our respective official capacities and do not necessarily represent the views of the Commission or other Commissioners. Chairman Atkins needs no introduction, but I will briefly provide some background for everyone.

Mr. Atkins was sworn in as the 34th Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21 last year. Before returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins' most recent position was as CEO of Patomak Global Partners, a consulting firm he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008, during which he advocated for transparency and consistency in regulation and promoted the use of cost-benefit analysis in institutional work.

Chairman Atkins' career began in New York as a lawyer, primarily handling various corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He spent two and a half years in the Paris office of his law firm and obtained the French "conseil juridique" (legal advisor) qualification. He is a member of the New York and Florida Bar Associations, holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Vanderbilt University Law School, and graduated with an A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa) from Wofford College in 1980. Chairman Atkins was born in Lillington, North Carolina, and grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.

An interesting fact about Chairman Atkins is that he is fluent in German and French. He may also be considering adding a new language to his repertoire. Chairman, have you thought about learning Solidity?

Atkins: No need. Vibe coding is more than enough. It's a huge improvement compared to BASIC-PLUS and COBOL that I used in college.

Peirce: Fair point, Chairman. But if your AI-generated smart contracts start claiming that "everything is a security," we might suspect that it’s an AI hallucination. A few years ago, if someone had told me I would be standing on a stage at a crypto conference with the SEC Chairman, I would have thought they were talking nonsense. But here we are—let's get to the point.

Over the past year, under Chairman Atkins' leadership at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and during the interim phase led by Acting Chairman Uyeda at the beginning of the year, we have taken many initiatives to "clarify" crypto regulation, including:

• Actively soliciting and receiving written responses on a wide range of complex crypto issues;
• Holding several in-depth roundtable discussions on specific topics, including the definition of securities, trading, custody, tokenization, DeFi, and privacy; meeting numerous developers and builders during "crypto outreach" events both in-person in Washington, D.C., and across the country; providing technical assistance to the United States Congress in advancing crypto legislation;
• Launching a new collaborative initiative with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to establish a long-term foundation for regulatory coordination and cooperation in areas of mutual interest (including crypto); ending the practice of "regulation by enforcement";
• Issuing multiple staff guidance documents and FAQs to help the market understand what the SEC staff believes falls within and outside the SEC's jurisdiction (covering topics such as mining, staking, meme coins, stablecoins, etc.), and how regulated entities should comply with existing rules when engaging in crypto-related activities; rescinding some unhelpful staff guidance, such as SAB 121;
• Publishing a staff statement regarding broker-dealer custody of "crypto asset securities"; issuing a cross-departmental staff statement proposing a taxonomy for tokenized securities; approving generic listing standards for exchanges regarding crypto ETPs (exchange-traded products);
• Issuing several "no-action letters" to various projects, including those related to tokenization and DePIN; and initiating the rulemaking process for design, exemptive relief, and committee interpretations to lay the groundwork for a sustainable and stable regulatory framework.

Chairman, could you please preview what progress we can expect in crypto regulation this year?

Atkins: We have a lot of work ahead of us. In addition to continuing to communicate about important legislative work underway in Congress, as you mentioned, we will also advance regulatory efforts through "Project Crypto." This project is now being conducted as a joint initiative with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

As you all know, one of our own—Mike Selig—was previously introduced to the SEC by Commissioner Hester M. Peirce and served as the Chief Legal Advisor for the Crypto Task Force in my office; he is now the Chairman of the CFTC. We plan to jointly advance a series of important matters—regulatory coordination, joint rulemaking—creating an unprecedented collaborative regulatory path, especially considering that these two agencies have often "clashed" at the regulatory boundaries in the past.

From the SEC's perspective, I expect the Commission and staff to focus on the following matters in the coming weeks and months:

• Framework documents at the Commission level: Explaining how we view crypto assets that may constitute "investment contracts" and therefore fall under regulation. How are investment contracts formed? How do they terminate?
• Innovation exemptions: Allowing limited trading of certain tokenized securities on new platforms to explore and gradually form a long-term regulatory framework in practice.
• Rulemaking proposals: Establishing a more commonsense and workable path for market participants to raise capital in scenarios related to the sale of crypto assets.
• No-action letters and exemptions: Providing further clarity, including addressing whether products such as wallets and other user interfaces need to be registered under the Securities Exchange Act; clarifying those that do not constitute registration subjects.
• Broker-dealer custody rulemaking: Developing rules for broker-dealer custody of "non-security crypto assets," including payment stablecoins.
• Modernization of transfer agent rules: Promoting updates to the transfer agent system to accommodate the potential role of blockchain in record-keeping.
• Supplemental guidance and no-action letters: Continuing to help market participants understand how existing rules apply in their specific factual contexts through additional guidance and no-action letters.

Peirce: It sounds like there is indeed a lot of work to be done, but for us "securities rule enthusiasts," this experience feels a bit like participating in the Olympics—the thrill is almost on par with skiing down a slope at 80 miles per hour, performing difficult tricks in mid-air, or completing a quadruple jump followed by a backflip on the ice. While we are far from being as "dramatic" as Olympic champions, we do have a rare opportunity: to re-examine a multitude of complex regulatory issues in the context of this new technology. This task also requires "air skills," and we do not want to hurt or break anything—the only barriers we want to break are those unnecessary regulatory obstacles that hinder technological progress.

I want to take a moment to talk about "innovation exemptions." The expectations and concerns it raises may need to be tempered. In fact, the way people are talking about it now reminds me of those who buy abandoned storage lockers: they are convinced that there is a rare masterpiece and a box full of gold bars hidden inside. Similarly, some believe that innovation exemptions will solve all their regulatory pain points in one fell swoop.

On the other hand, some in traditional finance (TradFi) seem to think that the soon-to-be-opened storage locker contains a monster that will devour the entire traditional financial system in an ugly manner. They worry that innovation exemptions will allow crypto companies to ignore all rules. Both sides will likely find that innovation exemptions will not be as "disruptive" as either side imagines. It will be an important step in facilitating the smoother integration of tokenized securities into the existing financial system, but it will not change the entire financial system overnight.

What we are doing now is still a gradual approach—as always. The goal is to promote the absorption of new technologies by the system in a "naturally growing" manner: enhancing the system's vitality and resilience while enabling it to serve investors, businesses, and other capital users more effectively. Paul, could you elaborate on what you envision the innovation exemption to look like?

Atkins: I tend to think of establishing an "innovation exemption" that allows both traditional financial participants and crypto-native entities to experiment within certain boundaries. For example, allowing market participants to trade certain tokenized securities through automated market makers (AMMs), even if that mechanism may not have a single person or group "controlling" it. In my view, as long as market participants are willing, they should be able to interact with decentralized applications on public, permissionless blockchains. However, I also anticipate that many Americans would prefer to have intermediaries hold their assets and trade on their behalf. The choice of whether to use intermediaries should be made by individual investors, not dictated by the SEC. I also hope to discuss whether a "safe harbor" should be provided for participants who may facilitate such transactions in practice.

Specifically, I would like to explore how issuers intending to tokenize their securities can collaborate with transfer agents or other tokenization agents to tokenize securities, enabling them to be traded on-chain through AMMs or other trading systems, environments, or platforms that provide decentralized liquidity. Following this potential path, the innovation exemption would set limits on trading volume and may grant exemptions from certain rules and other requirements within a certain scope—requirements that may not be relevant under the operational mode of that technology. Buyers and sellers of tokenized securities would need to go through a whitelist process. This exemption would be temporary but long enough for us to assess whether new rules or revisions to existing rules are needed to allow such transactions to continue under appropriate conditions and enable any parties needing to register to do so. I welcome feedback from all parties on this potential proposal.

Peirce: Thank you for giving us a "glimpse into the storage locker." No Picasso, but no terrifying monster either. Just a gradual step from which market participants can learn, potentially helping us move toward a "fit-for-purpose," long-term sustainable regulatory framework. Speaking of new things, you and I have seen some demonstrations showing us how these technologies (like decentralized exchanges) work. Was there anything in what you saw that impressed you?

Atkins: One interesting aspect of this technology is the ability to "embed" compliance requirements directly into the smart contract code. For example, a company's founders could write their commitment to "not reselling their securities within a certain period" directly into the smart contract managing the tokenized securities. Similarly, we could reimagine the way issuers communicate with holders using blockchain. Additionally, privacy-protecting technologies like zero-knowledge proofs could fundamentally change how we achieve the regulatory goals of the Bank Secrecy Act. In this model, Americans would not have to relinquish their privacy entirely to financial institutions, and the compliance costs for these intermediaries would also be lower.

Peirce: That sounds promising. I have always been very concerned that financial surveillance has been embedded too deeply in our financial system. Americans now have the opportunity to leverage new technologies to protect themselves from bad actors while also safeguarding our nation from adversarial threats. We should seize this moment to re-recognize the importance of financial privacy for the safety of the American people.

Now let's talk about the "elephant in the room": how do you view the recent decline in crypto asset prices? Should regulatory attention now focus on this issue? Should regulators panic, or even care about the price drop?

Atkins: The role of regulators is not to worry about the daily fluctuations of the market; our responsibility is to ensure that market participants have the disclosure information they need to make informed investment decisions. Whether buying stocks, precious metals, or crypto assets, if a person's sole focus is "the numbers always go up," they are likely to be disappointed. Markets will rise and fall under various factors. The most important thing we can do as regulators is to ensure that the rule framework for the asset classes we oversee allows market participants to obtain the necessary information to express their judgments and sentiments about the market through decisions like whether to buy related assets.

Peirce: I agree. "Number go down" is the current popular slogan, and some crypto critics even "celebrate in the streets." In German, this reaction can be called "Schadenfreude," roughly translated as "taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others." Here, we might refer to their attitude as "Ethbelowthreeglee" (the joy of Ethereum falling below three thousand) or "Bitcoinunderseventylevity" (the lightness of Bitcoin falling below seventy thousand).

But the best response to these critics is not to hurriedly seek some regulatory change to make the "numbers go back up." Of course, providing clearer rules through legislation and regulation can help create a favorable environment for building. But regulation is not the "source" of value emergence. You must create what people truly want and need. Only then can you garner broader support across the aisle in Washington—if people are indeed using something, the government will be less inclined to take it away.

Chairman, could you share some lessons from your many years of experience in capital markets on how innovators can more effectively interact with the regulatory system and successfully advance compliance and innovation?

Atkins: I agree with your point: in Washington, building useful things that people truly want and need speaks volumes. If this technology can be developed and applied cautiously, as securities gradually move onto the blockchain, it could have transformative impacts on the financial system. For example, asset tokenization could change our familiar financial system by shortening settlement cycles, facilitating the flow of collateral and dividends, enabling proxy voting, or making it easier for people to build and manage "customized, decentralized" portfolios. We are ready to collaborate with those committed to building a better future.

I am hesitant to repeat the previous administration's often-mocked slogan, but I will say: "Come in and talk to us." We will not "favor one side" on any specific asset or technology, nor will we become your spokesperson, but we hope our market can remain open to those providing new products and services. Our rule framework should not be an obstacle to innovation—especially when these innovations can further achieve our regulatory goals of protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets.

Peirce: You have captured that balance well. We are not "cheerleaders" for any new asset or technology, but we hope the market will welcome those with ideas who are trying to improve market operations. The SEC has not always been friendly in the past. If regulation is done poorly, it could deprive the American public of benefits they could otherwise enjoy.

For example, our past reluctance to engage constructively with token issuers led to a counterintuitive result: tokens that do not confer any substantive rights to holders are less likely to attract negative regulatory attention than those that do confer rights. The consequence is that we now find ourselves in a world where most tokens do not confer any rights to their holders.

I hope we can reach a stage where project developers are no longer afraid to design tokens that have a certain claim to revenue streams and therefore fall under the category of securities. Paul, what conditions and changes do we need to achieve the state where "people can confidently issue tokens that clearly fall within the category of securities"?

Atkins: We need to continue advancing what we are doing—providing clearer rules and paths for how tokenized securities can align with the existing regulatory framework, and how intermediaries can operate in compliance when representing clients in tokenized securities transactions and custody. This work can only be done collaboratively; we welcome input from all parties, including those crypto opponents steeped in "Schadenfreude."

I encourage everyone present to think about what attributes a token should have to be truly useful to people; then work with us to push for a regulatory framework that can accommodate and support those attributes without undermining our important regulatory goals. Of course, this process will take time. Innovators do not necessarily have to wait for these changes to be fully implemented before they start building. While we engage in broader discussions to assess whether fundamental adjustments to the rule framework are needed, communicating with us to see if there are feasible compliance paths under existing rules in your specific factual and business structures may be a necessary transitional step.

Peirce: Paul, you are known for your optimism even in difficult environments. Do you have any parting advice for the audience experiencing a tough crypto market cycle?

Atkins: Keep your head down and build something truly important. That way, we can transform "Schadenfreude" into "Freudenfreude"—the joy we genuinely feel when others succeed. A little dark chocolate and Diet Coke might help too, but moderation is key with things like Celsius and Zyn.