SEC Chair Atkins Backs CLARITY Act Vote: Will BTC, ETH and XRP Rally?

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the agency’s newly proposed crypto framework represents its “most historic step yet” toward fulfilling the White House’s push to make the United States the crypto capital of the world, timed just ahead of the CLARITY Act’s scheduled Senate vote on September 15.

Atkins Lays Out the SEC’s Plan A and Plan B

Atkins said the SEC’s proposal is designed to work in tandem with the CLARITY Act rather than in place of it, allowing the agency to collect public comment now and be ready to move forward with formal rules once the legislation clears Congress and reaches the president’s desk. 

Asked how far the SEC would go if Congress fails to act, Atkins said the agency believes it has sufficient authority under existing law to proceed with rulemaking on its own, though he was clear that path is less durable than legislation. 

“What we really do need is statutory grounding of this to make sure that it is sustainable, lasting into the future,” Atkins said, noting that rules built purely on agency authority can be reversed by a future commission, while a law passed by Congress cannot be undone as easily.

Atkins also framed the effort as a reshoring push, arguing that crypto innovators have spent the past several years building products and raising capital offshore rather than in the U.S., and that American investors can already move money anywhere in the world regardless of domestic policy. “We need to make sure that they can do it here in the United States under United States law,” he said.