US Senate votes to confirm Paul Atkins to lead the SEC as it enters crypto friendly era

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump's pick for Securities and Exchange Commission Chair, who is expected to embark on creating a regulatory framework for digital assets.

The Senate confirmed Atkins by 52 to 44 votes on Wednesday.

Trump tapped Atkins in December to lead the SEC and is expected to take a much more friendly approach to crypto. Atkins founded the consulting firm Patomak Global Partners in 2009 and the firm has clients including banks, crypto exchanges and DeFi platforms, according to its website. He was also appointed by former President George W. Bush as an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008.

In prepared testimony during a Senate Banking Committee hearing last month, Atkins said he would make creating a regulatory framework for digital assets a "top priority." This comes as the SEC has swiftly turned a new leaf in its approach to regulating crypto after its former Chair Gary Gensler took a more wary viewpoint of the digital asset industry. Since Gensler's exit in January, the SEC has rescinded controversial crypto accounting guidance, dropped enforcement actions against major crypto industry players and created a crypto task force. That task force has its second roundtable on Friday.

During a hearing last week, Senate Banking Committee Chair Republican Tim Scott said that with Atkins' leadership, "the SEC will return to its core mission and will ensure our markets remain the envy of the world."

However, some Democrats criticized Trump's pick over Atkins' ties to collapsed crypto exchange FTX. According to multiple news reports, including The Wall Street Journal, FTX was a client of Patomak Global Partners and signed on as an adviser to FTX in early 2022. FTX filed for bankruptcy in late 2022 and the exchange's CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was found guilty in November 2023 of seven criminal counts.

"He [Atkins] has spent his post-government career helping billionaire scammers like CEO Sam Bankman-Fried get even richer," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a hearing last week.