At his first SEC Speaks conference as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Paul S. Atkins delivered a sweeping and assertive address, outlining a bold, innovation-centric vision for the agency’s future.

With a firm, pragmatic tone and a clear message to both regulators and the financial industry, Atkins signaled the beginning of a new era—one that seeks to support, rather than suppress, innovation in the capital markets.
Atkins framed his speech around a central theme: the SEC must not fear innovation but instead “embrace and champion it.” Citing the fundamental nature of markets as dynamic systems shaped by human behavior, he emphasized that innovation arises when people encounter problems and find ways to solve them.
“In a free society, human nature rises to the occasion with inventiveness and competitive spirit, plus Adam Smith’s invisible hand to provide incentives beyond mere altruism,” he said. He stressed that this pattern of progress is not something the SEC should resist—it’s something it should enable.
To reinforce this perspective, Atkins revisited several pivotal moments in SEC history where the agency either successfully supported innovation or temporarily stood in its way. He spoke at length about the “Paperwork Crisis” of the 1960s, when Wall Street was overwhelmed by the logistical nightmare of handling physical stock certificates in a rapidly growing market.
He described how “clerks trundling carts carrying boxes of those paper certificates” became the norm, leading to misdirected or lost securities, and causing exchanges to reduce trading hours or close altogether just to keep up.
“Fails ballooned and many inadequately capitalized broker-dealers were caught by that whiplash of scuttled transactions,” he said. But the SEC responded constructively, helping to usher in electronic trading and the eventual creation of the Depository Trust Company (DTC)—a collaborative success that transformed the industry.
He similarly pointed to the launch of SPDRs in the 1990s, the first exchange-traded fund (ETF), which initially languished inside the Commission due to internal disagreements. It wasn’t until Chairman Richard Breeden insisted that staff “figure it out” that the proposal moved forward. The result was a product that reached $1 billion in assets within three years and helped revolutionize how investors access broad market exposure. “Let the market decide; we cannot be the arbiter,” Atkins quoted Breeden, emphasizing that regulators should not predetermine which innovations succeed.
Moving to more recent times, Atkins was unsparing in his criticism of the SEC’s past treatment of crypto markets. He described an agency that initially ignored the space—what he called the “head-in-the-sand” approach—before pivoting to aggressive enforcement without offering clear regulatory guidance. The “just come in to visit” invitation to crypto firms, he said, too often led to subpoenas instead of dialogue. “It seemed like a catch-22 for market participants,” Atkins noted, criticizing a culture that left companies in regulatory limbo while discouraging constructive engagement.
Determined to chart a new path, Atkins announced that SEC staff had been directed to maintain transparent and open communications with the public and the industry. He praised recent staff-level guidance, such as FAQs issued by the Division of Trading and Markets, as steps toward clarity, while reiterating that only the Commission itself can “squarely address these issues to ensure that the public has clear rules of the road.” He also reiterated his support for allowing SEC registrants to custody and trade both securities and non-securities, a move he said could lower costs and bring unregulated markets into the federal oversight framework. “This would be an initial step towards the possibility of eventually achieving a ‘super-app’ reality,” he added.
As part of this broader realignment, Atkins announced a significant change to the SEC’s internal structure: the planned integration of FinHub, the agency’s Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology, into other divisions. While acknowledging FinHub’s original intent as a central resource for emerging technologies, he said it had become “perceived by many in the digital asset industry as a tool for enforcement rather than a tool to foster innovation.” He emphasized that its goals will now be ingrained across the agency, rather than confined to a small office. “Innovation will be ingrained in the culture SEC-wide, as it should be,” he said.
Atkins also addressed long-standing investor access restrictions to closed-end funds investing in private funds. Since 2002, such funds have required a $25,000 minimum investment and could only be sold to accredited investors. He argued that this outdated approach has excluded retail investors from a fast-growing segment of the market. “Private fund assets have almost tripled from $11.6 trillion to $30.9 trillion” in the past decade, he said, adding that it’s time to reconsider this 23-year-old practice. Opening access, while maintaining key investor protections, could offer valuable diversification and better align investments with individual risk profiles.
Finally, Atkins turned to the Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT, calling it a system in urgent need of review. With costs ballooning to nearly $250 million a year, he said, “This particular ‘CAT’ has quite an appetite for data and computer power.” He pledged a comprehensive review of the system’s costs, data collection scope, and reporting requirements. Given the pressure from both the industry and Congress, he emphasized that public engagement would be essential in determining the future of the program.
In closing, Atkins offered a clear summary of his priorities as Chairman: “As I begin my tenure…we are getting back to our roots of promoting, rather than stifling, innovation. The markets innovate, and the SEC should not be in the business of telling them to stand still.” With a steady hand and a market-friendly philosophy, Atkins appears determined to reshape the SEC’s culture into one that collaborates with the future rather than resisting it. “It is a new day at the SEC,” he concluded, leaving little doubt about the agency’s new direction.