The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sharply shifted its enforcement stance toward crypto companies during the first year of Chair Paul Atkins' tenure.

Cointelegraph, a blockchain media outlet, reported on April 20 that the SEC has repeatedly halted related civil enforcement and investigative procedures. It has also moved to approve crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and expand regulatory cooperation, taking steps that differ from the agency under former Chair Gary Gensler.

Atkins took office as SEC chair on April 21, 2025. Over the past year, the SEC has shown clear changes across its approach to digital asset regulation and enforcement. Earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump promised during the 2024 election campaign to replace Gensler, and Gensler resigned in January 2025. Mark Uyeda served as acting chair until Senate confirmation.

The shift began before Atkins took office. Uyeda launched a crypto task force led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, and in February 2025 the SEC began withdrawing civil enforcement and investigations against crypto companies starting with Coinbase. That trend became clearer after Atkins took office.

The SEC has approved multiple ETFs linked to crypto assets. It also signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to coordinate digital asset regulation, and issued interpretive guidance saying most cryptocurrencies are not viewed as securities under federal law. That amounts to a move away from the past approach of regulating by prioritising enforcement and toward a focus on institutional rulemaking.

In a CNBC interview reflecting on the past year, Atkins said, "Time went quickly, but during that time we made major progress." He added, "I promised a new era when I joined the SEC, and that is what happened," and stressed that there had been a shift away from enforcement-led regulation and the agency's lack of transparency in the crypto sector.

The crypto industry has broadly welcomed the changes, but Democrats have criticised the SEC and Atkins, saying they are not free of conflict-of-interest controversy. Those criticisms have been growing after the SEC withdrew investigations and enforcement involving companies linked to President Trump and his family.

The SEC's shift to a friendlier stance has not immediately led to the removal of regulatory uncertainty. The SEC is in a situation where it must wait for passage of the Digital Asset Market Structure Act, known as the Clarity Act, to clarify its authority over cryptocurrencies. The direction has changed through fewer lawsuits and investigations, ETF approvals and interpretive guidance, but the final regulatory framework depends on legislation in Congress.

Against that backdrop, the key points to watch going forward are twofold: whether the SEC will maintain its current approach of scaling back enforcement, and how clearly Congress will define supervisory authority and regulatory boundaries by passing the Clarity Act. The first year under Atkins showed a clear policy shift, but the final outline of the crypto regulatory system has not yet been set.

Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts criticised Atkins in a letter last week, saying he misled Congress during testimony before a House committee in February. In a letter dated April 15, she cited the SEC's own data for fiscal 2025 and argued that enforcement cases this year are at their lowest level in the past 10 years.