Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins urged Congress, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, to pass digital-asset legislation and reduce public-company disclosure requirements to help increase the number of initial public stock offerings in the U.S.
In a wide-ranging exchange with lawmakers, Atkins framed his first nine months back at the SEC as a “back to basics” reset—investor protection, orderly markets and capital formation—while arguing that years of “rules [multiplying] faster than the problems” have made going public too costly and complicated for U.S. companies.
The hearing occurred as President Donald Trump’s administration is simultaneously trying to write a durable rulebook for cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets—which has recently proved increasingly difficult—and work to recalibrate market surveillance and disclosure requirements.
Cryptocurrency: Atkins Urges Congress to Ensure Jurisdiction
Atkins repeatedly backed passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, which has already moved through the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate, as the best way to “future-proof” oversight by drawing a clearer line between responsibilities of the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
He told senators that statutory clarity would prevent the whiplash of “regulation by enforcement” and reduce uncertainty for innovators trying to determine whether a product falls under securities or commodities rules.
To bridge the gap while Congress negotiates final legislative language, Atkins said the SEC and CFTC are now working through “Project Crypto”—a joint initiative focused on creating a token taxonomy and potential exemptions designed to allow certain transactions to occur on blockchains while maintaining investor protections.
The push comes as the White House has been trying to break a stalemate among banks and digital asset firms on unresolved issues—including disagreements over stablecoin rewards—that have slowed momentum behind broader crypto market-structure bills.
The Senate Banking Committee still needs to advance its version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which focuses on the SEC’s responsibilities, after the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry advanced its portion of the bill, focused on the CFTC’s role, in a party-line vote at the end of January.
The legislation has become increasingly difficult to pass, because Democrats want to include certain ethics requirements to address conflicts of interest with U.S. officials profiting from the crypto industry. Democrats’ support would be needed for the bill to reach a full Senate vote.
Democrats attempted to add the ethics amendment in the Agriculture Committee’s version, but it did not pass. However, they could insist that such an amendment be included in the full Senate version if the bill gets that far.
IPOs and Disclosures: ‘Materiality’ and Information Overload
Atkins also used the hearing to argue that U.S. corporate disclosure requirements have become so voluminous they can obscure, rather than illuminate, risk. He cited the disclosure burden as a factor causing the U.S., in 2026, to have fewer listed companies than in past decades. He pointed to the SEC’s required annual reporting as a cost center for public companies—estimating it costs them billions annually to comply—and promised to “modernize, rationalize and streamline” disclosures about materiality, a cornerstone concept in U.S. securities law.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the committee, accused Atkins of pulling back from the SEC’s “cop on the beat” posture, pointing to analyses from both the public and private sectors showing sharp declines in enforcement activity and monetary collections from enforcement in fiscal 2025. Cornerstone Research, for example, reported lower totals for securities enforcement-related settlements in fiscal 2025 and fewer actions against public companies and subsidiaries, compared with totals from fiscal 2024.
Atkins pushed back, saying the SEC’s full data had not yet been released, and attributed operational delays in part to a prolonged federal government shutdown in late 2025 that disrupted agency processes.
The hearing continued what has been an active week for Atkins. On Wednesday, he spoke at a hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services, where he voiced his support for including private assets in defined contribution retirement plans, given proper guardrails under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The SEC is working on guidance on the topic in response to an August 2025 executive order.
During Wednesday’s hearing before the Financial Services Committee, Atkins said the SEC was working with the Department of Labor, particularly its Employee Benefits Security Administration, on the guidance.
Tags: CFTC, digital asset, SEC