Digital Freedom or Digital Chains? The SEC’s New Crypto Rules

New Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Paul Atkins, made his first speech in his new role, announcing a change in approach to regulating digital assets. He emphasized that the regulator will no longer “try to stifle innovation” and must reconsider its operations in light of technological changes:

Let’s try to translate Atkins’ statements from bureaucratic to human language:

▫️ The SEC is preparing updated rules for the crypto industry and has already begun issuing clarifications for market participants.

Strict rules will soon appear, violations of which will be equated to breaking the law and will always lead to legal consequences.

▫️ Crypto companies will no longer face “regulation through enforcement”; instead, the SEC will open direct dialogue with businesses.

Direct dialogue will point to articles of existing laws and regulations, which will lead to even more discrepancies and confusion, so now they will simply bring criminal and administrative charges faster and more easily, citing specific laws and instructions.

▫️ Atkins proposed allowing the custody and trading of both securities and digital assets under a single license.

This means you can no longer simply download a wallet like Bitcoin Core to your laptop and store your bitcoins there as before. Instead, you will now need a license, just like in the securities market, which doesn’t allow you to buy Apple shares directly from the company, but only through a licensed broker. So you won’t be able to buy bitcoin from your neighbor or brother from wallet to wallet. You can only do this through a licensed intermediary, like the licensed crypto exchange Coinbase. Unlicensed trading of digital assets will lead to criminal liability.

▫️ The FinHub division, which the industry perceived as a pressure tool, will be disbanded, and its functions integrated into the main SEC structure.

Now the entire database of cryptocurrency transactions and pressure on cryptocurrency owners through law and regulations will be carried out by a single supervisory and punitive body, the SEC.

▫️ The regulator intends to simplify retail investors’ access to investment funds, including those related to alternative assets.

Forget about your Electrum, Trezor, and Ledger; you won’t be able to directly own bitcoin. Instead, buy unclear digital rights to paper bitcoin through fraudulent state-licensed funds, which can block your cryptocurrency at any moment, seize your assets without trial, simply by SEC order. Enjoy the simplification and freedom.

“This is a new stage for the SEC. We are returning to our roots — not hindering innovation, but supporting it,” Atkins said.

This is the final act of depriving you of digital freedom, financial decentralization, and the right to preserve the results of your labor in any form convenient for you. Forward to the digital concentration camp.