SEC Chair Paul Atkins Announces Digital Asset Classification Framework with CFTC

Gate News message, April 26 — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins has reaffirmed efforts to advance “Project Crypto” and announced a joint initiative with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to establish a digital asset classification framework that will clarify when tokens are considered securities. The SEC also introduced an “innovation exemption” to support on-chain tokenized securities trading.

Market observers view this as one of the most significant regulatory shifts in SEC history, marking a formal departure from the agency’s previous “enforcement-based regulation” model toward explicit rule-making. Bitcoin is currently trading around $77,586.

Market participants are closely watching SEC Chair Atkins’ further remarks at the Bitcoin 2026 conference scheduled for late April.