SEC Chair Atkins Says Crypto Agenda Will Proceed Even If CLARITY Act Stalls

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins used his Sept. 14 keynote at the Solana Policy Institute summit to send a dual-track message to markets.

He backed the CLARITY Act cloture vote set for Tuesday. At the same time, he told investors that Project Crypto, the SEC’s agency-wide crypto rulemaking program, will keep moving regardless of what the Senate decides.

That message shifts the investor read from a binary Senate pass-or-fail to a dual-track regulatory path.

Atkins Lays Out Three Pillars of Project Crypto

Speaking hours before Tuesday’s cloture vote, Atkins confirmed three concrete rulemaking tracks under Project Crypto, regardless of the Senate outcome.

The first is Regulation Crypto Assets. Atkins called it one of the most significant steps the Commission has taken to modernize federal securities law.

If adopted, it would let token founders raise capital in the U.S. under clearly defined rules.

The second covers transfer agents. Atkins said the SEC has not seriously updated those rules in roughly 40 years.

The push is the infrastructure story for tokenized securities and on-chain funds. It is the same ground ARK, BlackRock, and Fidelity’s race for an SEC-approved tokenized fund is already competing over.