Paul S. Atkins

Rule Changes

Led the commission that approved the rule

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Cboe's plan to list binary options tied to company performance metrics on October 13. Each contract pays a flat $1 if a reported metric clears a set threshold and expires worthless if it does not.

Updated 7 days ago

Rule Changes

Leading the proposal

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed rules that would restore cross-trading of most fixed-income securities, such as bonds, between registered funds and their affiliates. The practice has been largely blocked since 2020, when the agency's fund valuation rule effectively barred it.

Updated Oct 30

Rule Changes

As of October 2026: Leading the agency that handles the muni-market portion of the rollout

For decades, a bank, a fund, and a city government filed financial data to US regulators in formats that could not talk to each other. On June 25, 2026, nine agencies published a joint rule forcing all of them onto one machine-readable system.

Updated Oct 6

Rule Changes

As of September 2026: Leading the proposal to rescind Rule 14a-8

For 84 years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has let shareholders of public companies put their own proposals on corporate proxy ballots. On September 16, the agency proposed abolishing that rule; the plan was published in the Federal Register on September 21, opening a 60-day comment period that runs through November 20.

Updated Sep 21

Rule Changes

As of September 2026: Leads the commission that proposed the rule overhaul

The Securities and Exchange Commission's transfer agent rules were written for a world of physical stock certificates and paper ledgers. On September 1, the agency proposed its first major overhaul of that framework in over four decades, explicitly asking how the rules should handle blockchain-based recordkeeping and tokenized securities.

Updated Sep 3

Rule Changes

As of May 2026: Current chair, appointed 2025

Caroline Crenshaw walked out of the SEC on January 2, 2026, leaving the agency with three commissioners—all Republicans—for the first time in nearly two decades. She was the lone vote against Bitcoin ETFs, the single dissent on 13 crypto approvals, and the industry's most consistent obstacle. Her departure didn't just tilt the commission. It erased the opposition.

Updated May 19

Rule Changes

As of May 2026: Appeared for opening remarks at the Dec. 15 roundtable

The SEC spent years telling crypto: "We can't see you, so we can't trust you." Now it's hosting a public, recorded forum on the most explosive question in the space: how much visibility regulators should demand—and how much privacy Americans should keep.

Updated May 15

Rule Changes

As of May 2026: Overseeing a more crypto‑permissive but leverage‑constrained ETF regime

In late 2025, SEC staff sent warning letters to nine ETF issuers, including Direxion and ProShares. The letters froze applications for 3x–5x leveraged ETFs tied to single stocks, sectors, and crypto assets including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The SEC staff cited Rule 18f‑4's value‑at‑risk cap and the requirement that the unleveraged underlying asset be the designated reference portfolio, which established that new ETFs cannot legally target more than 200% exposure.

Updated May 10