Former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins has been officially picked to lead the agency, The New York Timesreports. Atkins reportedly accepted the job on Monday.
Asreported by U.Today, the former regulator was the overwhelming favorite on the Kalshi market, which is why the pick is not even remotely surprising.
The nomination, which is yet to be confirmed by the Senate, has been received overwhelmingly positively within the cryptocurrency community.
"Congratulations to Mr. Atkins. We appreciate his commitment to balance in regulating US securities markets and look forward to his fresh leadership…It's sorely needed and cannot come a day too soon," Paul Grewal, Coinbase's top lawyer, said in a recent social media post.
Alexander Grieve, the VP of Government Affairs for cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm, has said that today is a "good day" for the industry in repose to the Atkins nomination.
Greg Xethalis, general counsel at Multicoin Capital Management, believes that Atkins will allow the cryptocurrency industry to grow responsibly. "That is a dramatic change from the existing regime that acted to explicitly push crypto offshore," he noted.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who has been aggressively targeting the crypto industry during his term, will leave the agency next month.
Former SEC official John Reed Stark, who is known as a notable cryptocurrency critic, has said that Atkins is a "phenomenal" choice. With that being said, he has noted that Gensler's presence will still be felt within the SEC after he promoted some of the brightest crypto-enforcement lawyers to senior executive positions. "Fail not at your peril Big Crypto because the SEC has not quite given up yet," he warned.