The announcement by President-elect Donald Trump for Paul Atkins as his nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was the occasion of some hyperventilating, vaulting bitcoins over $100,000 level (or, alternately, driving the dollar down below 1/100,000th of a bitcoin). Bloomberg summarized the situation:
Chosen is “Paul Atkins, a Beltway conservative, cryptocurrency fan and former SEC commissioner to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. If confirmed, Atkins is expected to focus on slashing regulations and reducing penalties for securities violators. He’s on record questioning some of the rules put in place after Wall Street nearly collapsed the global financial system back in 2008. As an SEC commissioner during the George W. Bush administration, he made clear his position that the regulator’s role also is to increase competition and efficiency in the markets.”
Reuters offered a timeline, which included the following:
June: During a San Francisco fundraiser, Trump pitches himself as a champion for cryptocurrency and slams Democrats’ attempts to regulate the sector.
July: Trump tells a bitcoin conference that, if elected, he will create a strategic national bitcoin stockpile and will ensure that the United States is the “crypto capital of the planet.” (Cryptocurrency speculators played a much greater role in swaying elections this year.)
