SEC Chair Paul Atkins Vows Onchain Rules Despite Failed CLAIRTY Act

What Did Atkins Actually Say?

Atkins sat down with CNBC’s Squawk Box in a wide-ranging Sept. 29 interview covering the initial public offering (IPO) market and trading in tokenized securities. However, the conversation drifted into the crypto realm, with one line perking up everyone’s ears:

Congress failed, so the SEC will provide the answers itself on raising capital onchain.

And while the position isn’t a new one, it has become louder than ever in recent weeks. To elaborate, the day after the Senate vote, Atkins posted the following message on X, where he did not hold back one bit, stating unequivocally:

With or without legislation, we will act decisively within the SEC’s statutory authority to deliver certainty for American investors and for the entrepreneurs shaping our technological future.

He has not said what form the onchain fundraising guidance will take, whether an exemption, a registration pathway or staff-level guidance.

Why Is Congress out of the Picture?

The Senate’s cloture vote on the CLARITY Act failed 49-50 on Sept. 15, 11 votes short of the 60 needed. The fight that sank it was not the split of oversight between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It was ethics language on officials’ crypto holdings, with Democrats arguing it did not reach the president and his family.

Sen. Thom Tillis filed a motion to reconsider, so the bill is not procedurally buried. But the Senate’s next session runs Oct. 5 to Nov. 6, right on top of midterm campaigning, and prediction markets price 2026 passage in single digits. For builders who need answers this year, the SEC is now the only door that is open.

What Has the SEC Already Done?

On Sept. 17, the agency cleared a path for tokenized stocks, moving markets closer to 24/7 trading. On Sept. 25, the Division of Corporation Finance released nine FAQs on how a token issuer’s promises affect securities treatment.

Staff said that describing current network uses or broad future plans would not, by themselves, signal essential managerial efforts, and that buybacks on a functional network would not count as a promise of profit. Promising yield on an unfinished system, however, could. That is the rough outline of the onchain fundraising rulebook Atkins is now promising to finish.

Who Is Left to Write It?

Commissioner Hester Peirce, the industry’s so-called “Crypto Mom,” resigns effective Oct. 2, leaving just two sitting commissioners, Atkins and Mark Uyeda, with both Democratic seats vacant.

Peirce is heading out with the same message and in remarks made on Sept. 29, she said crypto builders need better protections, that financial privacy must remain intact and that regulators should keep moving with their existing authority even without the CLARITY Act. A week earlier, she urged the agency to use zero-knowledge proofs to fix know-your-customer (KYC) checks.

There is, however, a catch in all of this, given that agency rules move faster than statutes, but they are also easier to undo. In fact, a future SEC chair could rewrite guidance that the current two-member commission puts in place, which is exactly the durability problem the CLARITY Act was meant to solve.