Disclosure
Atkins: SEC Will Allow IPOs with Mandatory Arbitration Bylaws
“So, and so what we're doing is so I made it explicit that the commission will not turn away and the staff will not turn away those sorts of would be IPOs if they have a bylaw With either of those two provisions.”
Disclosure
Atkins: SEC to clarify meme coins and stablecoins are not securities
“That's our goal is to come out with rules that differentiate between what's the stock,
Security, and what is a commodity where the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, can oversee.
So meme coins and all that, and stable coins, those are not
for the…”
Opinion
Atkins: Prior SEC pursued crypto regulation through enforcement with antiquated rules
“Unfortunately the SEC started by looking at crypto as maybe the ostrich with the head in the sand, as was their attitude. Like maybe this stuff will go away by the time we lift our head out of the sand. That obviously didn't happen. And then came the very basi…”
Opinion
Atkins: Past SEC practices drove crypto asset trading offshore
“The trouble with the past practices of the, Commission is that it drove trading of crypto assets offshore.”
Opinion
Atkins: Politicized activists with minimal shares weaponize shareholder proposals
“So unfortunately, these have been weaponized to push particular views or issues by certain I call them politicized shareholder activists. So they, yes, they own shares, but a very, usually a very minimal number of things.”
Disclosure
Atkins: SEC and DOL reviewing rules to expand retail private access
“So we are undertaking, and there's an executive order the president signed, asking the
Department of Labor and us to, ah, you know, to make it so, to look at these various rules and, ah, and to try to see what makes sense for you know, normal people to be able…”
Opinion
Atkins: State competition for corporate charters is not a race to the bottom
“I don't think it's a race to the bottom, because after all, you have investors and others on the outside who are, Very discerning, and they decide, you know, after all, you know, what makes for a good company and what policies, ah, matter.”
Assertion Supported
Atkins: Saul Alinsky pioneered the weaponization of corporate proxies
“The one that really weaponized this to begin with, It was a community organizer named Saul Alinsky back in the 19 sixties and seventies, and so he wrote a book in 1970, I believe, called Rules for Radicals. So the penultimate chapter is called Project Proxy, a…”
Disclosure
Atkins: SEC expands crypto task force into agency-wide 'Project Crypto'
“Commissioner Peirce launched a what's called, we call the crypto task force. Now it's turned into project crypto because we're infusing it throughout the agency rather than just you know, a small group of people trying to figure that area out. But with the goa…”
Insight
SEC Chair Atkins: On-chain tokenized securities reduce financial settlement risk
“Through tokenized securities and other aspects, I think we can make, Much more efficient. We can have, ah, instant, almost instantaneous, depending on you know, the type of instrument, but on-chain, delivery versus payment, payment versus delivery, and so that…”
Assertion Supported
Atkins: CFTC-regulated LedgerX protected customer assets when FTX collapsed
“So when FTX imploded, Ledger X didn't really miss a beat. And the, they had segregated accounts. So every customer's assets were accounted for. And you know, nothing as far as I know was lost. And so then Ledger X has survived and now you know, was sold out of…”
Assertion Supported
Atkins: Delaware Outlawed Mandatory Arbitration and Fee-Shifting Bylaws
“And significantly the state of Delaware over the last 10 years has made both of those you know, out of bounds, illegal for public companies who are registered and Franchise the state of Delaware.”
Assertion Supported
Atkins: Retail investors directly held 50% of US market cap in 1990
“30 years ago, so in 19 nineties, say, the late eighties, 1990 the still 50% of the capitalization on the U.S. Stock exchanges were held by individuals directly.”
Assertion Supported
Atkins: US equity market capitalization accounts for half of global total
“And now the United States the capitalization of our equity markets is fully half of the entire world's capitalization. That's up from 30%.”
Assertion Supported
Atkins: SEC has halted about a dozen China-linked ramp-and-dump schemes
“And so we have shut down so far about a dozen of them to protect American investors from getting into it.”
Disclosure
SEC Chair Paul Atkins divested all crypto holdings upon taking office
“In fact, I had a Get rid of all of my crypto related holdings when I took this job.”
Paul Atkins