SEC’s Paul Atkins Advocates for Regulatory Clarity in On-Chain Capital Raising

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins has called for definitive rules governing on-chain capital raising, emphasizing the need to eliminate legal uncertainty for crypto entrepreneurs. Speaking at the OECD Roundtable on Global Financial Markets, Atkins argued that most digital tokens should not be classified as securities—a stance that challenges the SEC’s decade-long enforcement approach.

The remarks align with Project Crypto, a regulatory initiative backed by the TRUMP administration to modernize securities laws for blockchain-based assets. The project seeks to replace analog-era frameworks with rules tailored to tokenized equities, decentralized exchanges, and algorithmic stablecoins. Atkins criticized the SEC’s reliance on ad hoc enforcement, urging predictable guidelines to foster innovation.