SEC Chairman Atkins: U.S. is "Probably 10 Years Behind” on Cryptocurrency

Plus the PCAOB proposes a 20% cut to the salaries of its board members.

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Atkins: US ‘10 Years Behind’ on Crypto, Fixing It ‘Job One’

During a recent event in Washington, DC, US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins said the United States is a decade behind in crypto and that addressing the issue is a priority for the regulator.

During the DC Fintech Week event on Wednesday, Atkins said he thinks the United States is “probably 10 years behind” on cryptocurrency. “The crypto aspect is our job one,” he said.

Atkins said the SEC aims to “build a strong framework to actually attract people back into the United States who may have fled.” The agency wants this framework to allow innovation to thrive.

“I like to say that we’re the securities and innovation commission now,“ he quipped.

by Cointelegraph

PCAOB Proposes 20% Cut to Board Pay Amid SEC Scrutiny

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has proposed a 20% cut to the salaries of its board members as it faces scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission over compensation levels.

The cut was part of a preliminary 2026 budget the U.S. audit regulator submitted to the SEC in recent weeks, people familiar with the matter said. The plan suggests shrinking the overall budget by roughly 10% from the anticipated 2025 amount. This year’s spending is expected to come in below the $399.7 million the SEC approved last year.

The SEC, which oversees the PCAOB, has until Oct. 31 to propose revisions to the preliminary budget, followed by an audit-board vote in November and SEC vote in December, according to SEC rules. The process could be delayed by the government shutdown.

The PCAOB chair is paid nearly $673,000 and the four other board members almost $547,000, as has been the case since 2009. An overhaul to board pay has appeared likely since Paul Atkins, who has argued that the salaries are overly high, took the helm of the SEC in April.

by WSJ

👉 The article adds that “even with a 20% cut, [PCAOB] board pay would remain significantly above the salaries of SEC commissioners.”

MIT Grad Brothers’ Trial Puts Focus on ‘Wild West of Crypto’

Two brothers, both recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates, are going on trial this week in a case that promises to shed light on a secretive and controversial cryptocurrency trading strategy.

James and Anton Peraire-Bueno are accused of stealing around $25 million from traders on the Ethereum blockchain engaged in so-called sandwich attacks. The brothers, who have pleaded not guilty, argue their conduct was fair game in an unregulated area of the market, and that their alleged victims were doing something similar.

The case has divided the crypto community. Many are hoping the Manhattan federal court trial, which began with opening arguments Wednesday, will help clarify the rules of the road for what are known as Maximal Extractable Value strategies. MEV involves reordering, excluding or including transactions before they are posted to the blockchain.

“The idea that it was criminal honestly didn’t even occur to me,” Evan Van Ness, chief investment officer of crypto trading firm TXPool Capital, said of the case against the brothers. “If people think crypto is the Wild West, MEV is the Wild West of crypto.”

by Bloomberg

👉 The Costanza Defense: “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon….”

Takeaways for SEC enforcement: Looking back at FY 2025 and the first six months of Chairman Atkins

As the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) transitioned to the new administration and the leadership of Chairman Paul Atkins earlier this year, two parallel enforcement goals emerged: first, to promote industry innovation by tempering enforcement based on creative interpretations of the securities laws, and second, to direct resources, now more limited following staff cutbacks, toward anti-fraud protections.

At the close of fiscal year 2025 and the six-month mark for Chairman Atkins, a look back shows that SEC enforcement has moved in line with these goals.

The Commission has stepped back from the types of recordkeeping and compliance foot faults that characterized the prior administration — e.g., expansive enforcement sweeps based on standalone recordkeeping violations concerning firm off-channel communications — and has nearly extinguished enforcement concerning crypto registration. At the same time, however, the Division of Enforcement (Division) is not stagnant. Recent actions deliver on the promise to target instances of straight-up fraud and harm to retail investors.

Infrastructure and procedural changes also set a framework for a more transparent and practical enforcement process.

Understanding these shifts helps in looking ahead as the Commission starts its first full fiscal year under Chairman Atkins.

by Reuters

👉 Article by Meghan Flinn and Theodore Kornobis of K&L Gates.

The Path Toward a Market Structure for Crypto Assets

Over the past few months, U.S. market regulators have taken significant steps toward crafting a regulatory framework for crypto assets, with the objective of defining a market structure where digital assets can be an integral part of the financial markets….

Following the release this past summer of a report from the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, the SEC and CFTC have stepped up these efforts. The SEC announced “Project Crypto”—a “Commission-wide initiative to modernize the securities rules and regulations to enable America’s financial markets to move on-chain.” The CFTC likewise launched its “Crypto Sprint,” aimed at “enabling immediate trading of digital assets at the Federal level.” And just last month, the agencies announced a “harmonization” initiative, intended to coordinate these efforts.

While a fully developed market structure for crypto assets will take time to develop and implement—and will likely include some form of legislative mandate—we already have important insights into what the eventual structure may look like.

by Law. com

👉 Article by Ladan Stewart and Shuhang Liu of White & Case.

AI Risk Disclosures in the S&P 500: Reputation, Cybersecurity, and Regulation

AI is now firmly recognized as a material enterprise risk in the mandated filings of the largest US public companies (Figure 1). This reflects how quickly AI has shifted from experimental pilots to business-critical applications shaping customer engagement, operations, compliance, and brand value. It also signals that boards and executives expect heightened scrutiny from investors, regulators, and other stakeholders.

Still, over one-quarter of S&P 500 firms make no explicit reference to AI, either because their exposure is limited, potential impacts are captured under broader risk categories, or disclosure practices lag behind actual use.

by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

👉 Article by Matteo Tonello of The Conference Board.

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