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Trump’s Top SEC Chair Pick Paul Atkins Reluctant to Take Job: Source

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A lot of stars would need to align for Paul Atkins, reportedly president-elect Donald Trump’s top candidate to chair the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to take the job.

It is an unattractive role for him because of the amount of work needed to turn around the bloated agency he believes was mismanaged by outgoing SEC chair Gary Gensler, a person familiar with Atkins’ thinking said.

Reluctance to clean up Gensler’s “mess” has been shared by former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Chris Giancarlo, who has advocated for Atkins to take the SEC job and was once considered a candidate himself.

Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, was spotted at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort this week, one industry source said. He was scheduled to interview for the SEC chair role Sunday and Monday, said another person with knowledge of the meetings.

Atkins is the founder and CEO of Patomak Global Partners, a global consulting firm specializing in strategy, risk management, and regulatory compliance. Patomak serves crypto firms, but they are a small part of its diversified practice, which includes traditional financial clients, public companies, trade associations, law firms, banks and insurance companies. Prior to starting Patomak, Atkins was a commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008, appointed by former President George W. Bush. During his time at the SEC, Mark Uyeda and Hester Pierce, who later became commissioners, worked as counsel to Atkins.

Atkins is well regarded in conservative circles. According to a source close to Atkins, he is friendly with Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent, the billionaire hedge fund manager selected by Trump to become Treasury Secretary.

Atkins is reluctant to leave his practice, the person familiar with his thinking said. Taking up the SEC chair role would require him to resign from his business interests, which he may only do once his firm is well-positioned to operate without him, sources said.

Other candidates

Crypto attorney Teresa Goody Guillén is also said to be under consideration by the Trump transition team. Binance co-founder Changpang Zhao, Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson and other crypto executives are privately and publicly supporting her based on her pro-crypto views and experience serving and arguing against the SEC on behalf of blockchain clients. Guillén has declared on X that she wants to “Make Crypto Great Again” and has been polling the public on the most effective ways the agency could address regulatory challenges.

Last week, crypto executive and former acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks was believed to be a lead candidate to helm the SEC, gathering strong support from Web3 proponents and at one point leading the odds on prediction market Kalshi. But his lack of securities law experience made him a longshot, sources said.

Circle Chief Legal Officer and Head of Corporate Affairs Heath Tarbert is reportedly being considered. He is a former CFTC chair, assistant Treasury secretary, and associate White House counsel. “We won’t comment on speculation,” said a Circle spokesperson.

Brad Bondi was floated as a possible candidate, and while he has been described as “pro-crypto,” critics privately said he has little experience in Web3, and is more of a traditional securities lawyer with a background serving the SEC and opposing the agency in court. But Bondi’s trump card, as it were, could be his close ties to the Trump administration. His sister Pam Bondi was nominated to become U.S. attorney general and is a Trump loyalist who represented the former president during his 2020 impeachment trial.

Similarly, former SEC investment management director and Kirkland and Ellis partner Norm Champ is a Trump campaign backer who told CoinDesk “I would be honored to serve as SEC Chair if President Trump thinks I am the right person for the job.” But his traditional securities background has not gathered excitement in the crypto community.

Trump’s pick for Manhattan’s U.S. attorney, Jay Clayton, has strongly endorsed attorneys Robert Stebbins and Dalia Blass, sources said, whom he supervised as SEC chief from 2017 to 2020. Crypto experts have been outspoken against them.

“Stebbins personally signed off, approved and encouraged 80 or so SEC crypto-related enforcement actions, including the most controversial of all – the SEC case involving Ripple,” wrote Ripple Labs advocate and former SEC attorney John Reed Stark on X. The SEC partially lost that case when a judge ruled that XRP sales by Ripple Labs on public exchanges did not fall under the definition of a security; the agency has said it will appeal that decision.

“Big Crypto is extraordinarily powerful and will have a lot of influence in the SEC Chair’s selection and I can’t imagine Big Crypto allowing Bob Stebbins to get the SEC Chair nomination,” Stark wrote.

Republican SEC commissioner Uyeda could become acting chair of the SEC after Gary Gensler steps down on inauguration day if the Senate doesn’t confirm his SEC pick by January 20. Commissioner Pierce, another favorite for the role, has privately stated she is not interested in being the chair on an acting or permanent basis, which would improve Uyeda’s chances. Whether he would stay in the role is less certain.

“I expect Trump may prefer to bring in someone new of his own,” crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky stated on X.

Robinhood chief legal officer Dan Gallagher was said to be a top SEC chief candidate before the election, but he has since said he is not interested.

“I have made it clear that I do not wish to be considered for this position.” Gallagher told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. “I feel I can make tremendous progress to democratize finance in my current role, and I will remain a vocal and consistent advocate for positive change in our markets.”

Atkins, Guillén, and Uyeda declined to comment for this story. Trump transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, Brooks, Brad Bondi, Stebbins, and Blass did not respond to requests for comment.

Washington experts say the Trump administration will likely roll back the SEC’s oversight of the $3 trillion digital assets market in favor of the CFTC. The latter agency is widely perceived to take a lighter touch because the market it regulates – derivatives – is dominated by sophisticated institutional traders rather than retail investors with less risk tolerance.

The SEC has led a wide-ranging campaign against digital assets companies that was often criticized as unfair. The five-member commission will additionally need to fill a commissioner position following Jamie Lizárraga’s announced departure. The crypto community is keeping a close eye on the SEC chair selection process, which is expected to conclude in the coming days.





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Kenya Prepares to Legalize Cryptocurrencies in Policy Shift: Report

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Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said the country is preparing legislation to legalize cryptocurrencies, a shift from the government’s previous warnings against the industry.

“The emergence and growth of Virtual Assets (VAs) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) have given rise to innovations in the local and international financial system with dynamic opportunities and challenges,” Mbadi said according to local news outlet The Standard.

Mbadi stressed a need for a regulatory framework to both capitalize on the potential benefits of the industry while mitigating the risks posed by money laundering, terrorism financing and fraud.

“The Government of Kenya is committed to creating the necessary legal and regulatory framework in order to leverage opportunities presented by VAs and VASPs while managing the reluctant risks,” Mbadi said.

Kenya launched a draft policy on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers in December. The draft policy aims to establish a “fair, competitive and stable market” for cryptocurrency industry players and foster innovation and financial literacy, Mbadi said.

Kenya has historically kept a cautious stance toward the cryptocurrency industry. In December 2015 the country’s central bank issued a public notice warning against cryptocurrency use, stating that these assets weren’t legal tender in the country and no entity was licensed to offer money remittance services using crypto in Kenya.

Fast forward to 2022 and lawmakers in the country started weighing on whether to move ahead with a law to tax crypto as the industry kept on growing in the country. A United Nations report at the time showed roughly 8.5% of Kenyans owned cryptocurrencies.

CoinDesk did not hear back from Kenya’s Treasury before press time.





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Polymarket’s Customer Data Sought by U.S. CFTC Subpoena of Coinbase, Source Says

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Coinbase Inc. (COIN) is warning customers that a U.S. regulator is demanding information about interactions with prediction market firm Polymarket, according to a person familiar with the situation, and Coinbase has sent messages to customers saying the exchange may have to share that data.

Copies of the emails shared with some customers have circulated on social-media sites, and those warnings about the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) requests are accurate, the person said. The U.S. derivatives regulator has conducted a drawn-out legal battle with prediction markets firms, and this latest move comes just days before the leadership of the agency will flip from Democratic to Republican when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

“When we receive requests for information from a government, each request is carefully reviewed by a team of trained experts using established procedures to determine its legal sufficiency,” a Coinbase spokesperson said in an emailed statement, though the company declined to confirm receipt of the specific subpoena. “Where necessary, we will seek to narrow requests that are overly broad or vague in order to provide a more appropriately tailored response, and in some cases we object to producing any information at all.”

The CFTC lost an initial case against prediction market firm Kalshi when a U.S. federal judge ruled late last year that the agency couldn’t bar the company from listing election contracts. However, the regulator quickly filed an appeal with a higher court, and Polymarket argued in that new legal clash that only Congress can halt election betting.

Read More: U.S. Election Betting: Federal Court ‘Erred’ in Letting Kalshi Launch Prediction Markets, CFTC Says

Neither the CFTC nor Polymarket immediately responded to a request for comment on the effort to gather customer information.

On January 20, Trump will reclaim the White House, and he’ll be able to appoint a new chairman to replace Rostin Behnam, who has led the CFTC during its lengthy legal dispute with the prediction businesses. The sitting Republican commissioners, Caroline Pham and Summer Mersinger have drawn attention as potential candidates for the open chairmanship, as has former Commissioner Brian Quintenz. 





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Trump-Backed Mike Johnson Re-Elected Speaker of the House

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Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) will get to keep the big gavel after his fellow Republicans voted to re-elect him House Speaker on Friday afternoon.

Johnson, who has been publicly backed by President-elect Donald Trump, was able to garner the minimum 218 votes needed to win the job in the first round of voting, though he had to persuade two of his fellow Republicans – Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) and Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) – who initially voted for other candidates to change their votes to him.

With Republicans only having a razor-thin margin of control of the House, Johnson could only afford to lose one vote – which he did, to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky). Massie’s “no” vote came as no surprise; he previously told former Rep. Matt Gaetz that he would literally withstand torture before voting for Johnson. Instead, Massie voted for Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the Majority Whip and a longtime supporter of the crypto industry. Emmer voted for Johnson.

Friday’s voting process – the first order of business at the start of the 119th Congress – took only 2.5 hours in total, a much swifter and more streamlined process than the previous election in Oct. 2023 that first saw Johnson elected.

Though Johnson has not been very outspoken about crypto issues, he is widely considered to be a friend to the industry. He previously voted for the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (more commonly known as FIT21) and an anti-central bank digital currency (CBDC) bill.

Johnson’s re-election — and Emmer’s continued position as Majority Whip – means crypto-friendly members of Congress are likely well-positioned to push crypto legislation in 2025.





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