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Congress passing the first federal legislation to regulate stable coins in a major win for the crypto market. Joining us now, I'm really pleased to say, for a first time here on Bloomberg TV on Blomback surveyment's the SEC Chairman, Paul Adkins. Chair Atkins, Welcome to the program, sir. It's good to see it, good to see you.
Thank you very much for having me.
Well, thank you for being here. Before we get into it, I wanted to offer you the opportunity, sir, to talk about your philosophy in this seed versus what came before you, in the difference maybe between deregulation and just innovation.
Well, well, thank you very much.
We are out to, you know, obviously, change direction at the SEC, and I think we've already done that here in my first two and a half or so.
Months at the agency. But we're moving away from.
Regulation through enforcement and uncertainty in the markets, especially with respect to cryptocurrencies.
And digital assets in general. We're looking to set.
Firm, clear rules of the road for people who are operating in that environment so that innovators can innovate, they can rely on their advisors to tell them, you know, which is the right direction and how they can build on solid ground.
Regulators, though, can step in without explicit action from Congress. So when it comes to cryptocurrencies in the SEC, what actually comes next? What are your plans?
Well, so even before I got to the SEC, Hester Purse, who's one of the commissioners and she used to be my counsel when I was a commissioner back in to.
One thousand and two to two thousand and eight, was in.
Charge of a crypto task force that we're calling it, and they are focusing on.
Making clear rules for the industry.
So for example, things like mean coins and stable coins that was just the subject of the bill that was passed yesterday are not securities, and before that was not necessarily clear. And so that's an example of how we're trying to put people at ease in the marketplace so that they can innovate and they can move forward with their plans and not have to look over their shoulder.
When you were talking to reporters yesterday after the passing of this legislation, I believe you'll be at the White House today with the President when he signs it. You said the SEC is considering a quote innovative exemption from regulations to incentifize tokenization. What does that exactly mean innovated exemption and how long does this process take?
Well, it'll be an inerative process. And right now we are working on setting forth different things that can again make it clear for people in the marketplace, you know which way is the is the true north for them. Let's just say so that they don't have to worry about falling off the ditch and falling onto the ditch and getting in trouble with the regulators.
And so part of that will be working.
With our colleagues of the other regulators and especially the Commodity Futures Training Commission. But let's just say that as we go forth and as we interact with the marketplace, we've had five roundtables now looking at various aspects of the digital asset space. So we are working hard at coming up with guidance and rules and we'll use every tool in our toolbox to help people understand what is how to stay out of trouble.
Basically, Jaacken's one of the big concern is that a number of the stable coin issuers are not going to have the sufficient number of hard currency reserves on hand to really back those notes in a way that is as advertised. How are you to really counter that? Is that something that's in your list of concerns If the sec is going to be monitoring.
Well, one thing that I think the new to be signed.
A bill into law makes clear is that these are not securities and the whole it's the banking regulators who are going to be looking after them.
And I think that's appropriate because of the role that.
Stable coins play and I think will play in the future. Because part of the role promise I think digital of distributed ledger technology is immediate payment as part of the process of transactions, so settlement coming down to in effect almost heapless zero and to do it on the trade date, and that will make things much more efficient in the marketplace,
save money, reduced risk in our financial system. So this stable coins are in the realm of the bank regulators and they will look after to make sure that there is adequate and as advertise, adequate backing to the stable coins.
Jakins just sort of switching gears a little bit. There's been a lot of discussion around Congress and the President passing legislation that would open the door for people to take their money from the four to one case and put it into private assets, in particular private equity. How do you plan to oversee and make sure that that's done in a way that isn't potentially punitive for people who are retiring at ages where they need a lot more money for a lot longer.
Well, on that issue, we've heard a lot of input from both the investors who want access to the private markets and to those sorts of products, and obviously from the people who are producing the products who are about to meet that demand. So but we have to do it carefully, I think, because of course the private markets are a lot different than the public markets. Their liquidity
is not the same. There are all sorts of things for people who are not aware of the rules of the road where they could get hurt, and so we will work very closely with our counterparts at the Department of Labor who have oversight Ovarissa accounts to make sure that we have appropriate guidelines around these various products. And they're really for of course long term investment, especially private
equity and things like that. So we have to do this in a smart way so that individual investors are not inadvertently into something that they didn't realize what they were getting into.
Well, speaking of, for one, retirement plans, would you allow crypto into retirement plans? Because the Financial Time is reporting that we could see an executive order from the administration as soon as today allowing alternative investments into retirement plans.
Well, again, you know, I think that you know, disclosure is key and that people need to know what they're getting into. So things like that are not for everybody,
and and so especially in retirement plans. So we are I look forward to whatever may come out from the President as far as direction goes, but we are we need to address it because there is a demand out there for these sorts of products, and the government should not stand as a blocking agent for those sorts of things, but we need to enable it in the proper way, with proper guidelines and in proper disclosures.
Sir Atkins, you run an independent agency, so does J.
Powell.
I would love to know are you under any pressure from this White House? And what would be your advice to J. Powell because it seems like you have a better relationship with President Trump.
Well, I think.
So I've been at the SEC now this is a third time. I was there in the early nineties and the Richard Breeden and Arthur Levitt, and then again from two to eight and now here in two thousand and twenty five. So frankly, I don't see really any difference in operation from back then to now.
I know there's been a.
Lot of coverage of that, but you know, we are working hand in glove with our counterparts in the administration and at the Office of Management and Budget and OIRA, as far as talking to them about rules and other things that we are going to be publishing, so you know, keeping them up to date, taking their comments, which are all very good. So I don't see any real difference frankly in the ambit of maneuver that we have at
the agency. So I look forward to achieving a lot in the time that we have and because there is so much to do, this is what I like to call deferred maintenance that we have to address and so we are moving I think, at very quick pace, and so the rest of this year I think will be churning things out and moving in a different direction.
Hopefully this is a start of an ongoing conversation. Appreciate your time, Chair Radkins. Thank you, sir, the SEC Chair Paul Atkins there down in Washington, d C.