If adopted, he said, the framework would give entrepreneurs greater certainty to raise capital in the U.S. using digital assets rather than having to “guess what the law is as they go.”
The second is an overhaul of transfer agent rules to include blockchains for digital ownership ledgers. Atkins said the rules have not been seriously updated in roughly four decades and were built for paper stock certificates, while transfer agents are already adapting to a market that increasingly incorporates tokenized assets.
Moreover, Atkins said he has asked SEC staff to develop a proposal clarifying crypto custody for investment advisers and regulated funds. That proposal would seek to allow advisers, under certain conditions, to custody crypto themselves and to use state trust companies as custodians.
Atkins said self-custody may be necessary because qualified third-party custodians do not yet exist for some assets, while state trust companies already provide a pathway that “works in practice.”
He described the three initiatives together as “three pillars of a single, rational, and comprehensive regulatory architecture.”
“The SEC should not be the last institution to notice that the world actually has changed,” he said.
The push for the Clarity Act vote landed as the bill already faces an uphill battle, with several key disputes still unresolved ahead of Tuesday’s procedural vote.
