A glance inside the Better Markets crystal ball…
This week, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins will testify before both the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. Chair Atkins’s testimony follows a hearing the House held regarding the SEC last week, and a hearing the House held regarding the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in December. Both hearings concerned the future of these two financial agencies—at the same time as Congress is considering legislation that will greatly increase the CFTC’s jurisdiction over the crypto industry while crippling the SEC’s powers and authorities. As a result, these hearings present an opportunity to speculate about what actions the SEC and the CFTC might take next year. Given how totally subservient these agencies have been to the crypto industry so far, almost nothing would surprise us.
The following fictional events are obviously, well, fiction.
However, in light of both the SEC and CFTC giving the crypto industry virtually everything it wanted in 2025, it’s not hard to see how fiction might become fact. Nowadays, you just never know. So, let’s speculate about an imagined future.
On March 21, 2026, to mark the one-year anniversary of the first roundtable held by the SEC’s Crypto Task Force as part of its Crypto 2.0 initiative in 2025, SEC Chair Atkins and CFTC Chair Mike Selig change the names of their respective agencies:
“It is still a new day at the SEC,” Chair Atkins said (apparently unaware that every day is actually a new day). “And to show just how new this new day is, I’ve decided to re-name the SEC to better reflect our new mission—giving the crypto industry everything it wants. As a result, the SEC will now stand for the Syndicate for the Empowerment of Crypto.”
“Most people probably think that the SEC’s job is to enforce the securities laws to protect investors. Ah, sure, but under my administration, enforcement activity plunged to its lowest level in a decade. One report showed that my SEC brought only four cases against public companies in the last fiscal year—that’s one fewer than the number of roundtables we held to promote the crypto industry! I don’t know if that means we had too many enforcement cases or too few roundtables!”
“And those roundtables were just the start. I launched ‘Project Crypto,’ my plan to help make the United States the ‘crypto capital of the world.’ Why is that a good thing? Totally unclear because crypto has no real-world use case, other than wild speculation or facilitating criminal activity. And Americans don’t really care about crypto, as evidenced by the fact that according to Gallup only 4% of Americans who don’t already own crypto plan to buy it in the future. And, most Americans have a negative view of crypto, like 68% of primary voters in six swing states in 2024. But I used to have crypto companies as my clients, so no one should be too surprised that I find their money, er, I mean their arguments incredibly persuasive.”
“That’s why I spent the last year ensuring that the federal securities laws—the regulatory regime responsible for turning our capital markets into the envy of the world—do not apply to crypto. My SEC issued guidance saying that crypto mining, staking, and liquid staking do not involve the offer and sale of securities, that stablecoins do not involve the offer or sale of securities, and that meme coins are not securities but rather ‘collectibles.’ That last one is my favorite. Unlike collectibles, meme coins are not rare, nobody collects a set of meme coins, and nobody trades meme coins for other meme coins. Instead, meme coins are a purely speculative financial asset, just like a penny stock. So saying they are collectibles and not securities makes no sense, er, I mean makes perfect sense.”
“I’ve said repeatedly that I want to promote regulatory clarity when it comes to the crypto industry, and I think changing our name to the Syndicate for the Empowerment of Crypto makes our regulatory agenda crystal clear.”
“Early in my tenure, I’ve decided the best thing I can do is follow the SEC’s lead,” CFTC Chair Selig said. “I wanted announce that it is a new day at the CFTC, but Chair Atkins has already told people over and over that it is a new day at the SEC. Left no choice, I announced that the CFTC is charting a new course. I may also refer to my tenure at the CFTC as a new chapter. Unlike Chair Atkins, I haven’t decided what formulation to use over and over and over Lacking any imagination and not having the PR budget the SEC has, I have decided that, like the SEC, ‘Project Crypto’ should be part of the CFTC’s mission too. Given Chair Atkins’s leadership and our overlapping interests in prioritizing crypto, I too think my agency’s name should be similarly indicative of our new mission. As a result, the CFTC will now be known as the Commission for Fairshake to Trumpet Crypto.”
“While many think it is totally mis-named, Fairshake is the crypto industry’s most powerful political action committee, and I want it and all of crypto to know that it will always find an open door at the CFTC as it opens a new chapter on its new course each new day. We’ve already issued press releases quoting some of the crypto industry’s biggest firms cheering our approval of actions taken to benefit those very firms, as if they knew what the CFTC was going to do before we made those decisions public. Given that and so much else, naming the agency after a crypto group seemed like the logical next step.”
“Too bad that Fairshake does not have the benefit of employing my predecessor. After taking numerous actions to benefit the crypto industry— even after reportedly accepting her post-CFTC job—she went immediately not to Fairshake but to MoonPay, another crypto firm. It’s not too much to guess that it won’t be long before a member of the staff of the Commission for Fairshake to Trumpet Crypto leaves the CFTC and directly or indirectly joins Fairshake.”
On May 27, 2026, to mark the 80th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s articulation of the Howey test for determining whether an asset is a security, the SEC and CFTC both issue guidance declaring all crypto assets commodities and not securities:
“The Howey test means that a security involves ‘an investment where one parts with his money in the hope of receiving profits from the efforts of others,’ rather than ‘where he purchases a commodity for personal consumption,” Chair Atkins and Chair Selig said. “Surveys show that 81% of people who own crypto view crypto as an investment that they hope will appreciate, versus the 2% of people who use crypto for payments. So obviously the 81% are wrong and, therefore, there’s no question crypto should be regulated as a commodity and not a security.”
“I do want to reassure the public,” Chair Atkins added. “People might think that, since we’ve declared crypto under the jurisdiction of the CFTC and not the SEC, the SEC might no longer appear to spend all of its time on crypto. But, no fear! We still will. After all, we launched Project Crypto and the Crypto Task Force at the SEC last year despite the head of the task force saying that most crypto assets are not securities. I didn’t see anything inconsistent with spending time as a securities regulator on an asset class that we viewed as not covered by the federal securities laws—which is what we exist to regulate—and I see no reason to change that perspective.”
“I, for one, am delighted that the SEC is ceding its longstanding focus on protecting investors to the CFTC,” Chair Selig added. “Unlike the SEC, the CFTC lacks an investor protection mandate and any experience protecting retail investors from the scams, frauds, and abuses so prevalent in the crypto industry. It’s no wonder I omitted any mention of investor protection in my first remarks upon being sworn in as CFTC Chair. The CFTC need not pretend to care about things not in its statute like retail investors. Instead, we can continue promoting crypto no matter how much retail investors may suffer as a result.”
On July 31, 2026, to mark the one-year anniversary of when he first proposed it, Chair Atkins announces an “innovation exemption” through an exemptive order:
“When I first envisioned the innovation exemption,” Chair Atkins said, “I wanted to find a way for crypto companies to avoid what I called ‘prescriptive regulatory requirements’—also known as the federal securities laws that have protected American investors for almost a century. I originally thought that if we wanted to exempt an entire industry from the federal securities laws it might be better for Congress, rather than the SEC, to do it. But a legislative approach really only makes sense when the crypto industry doesn’t like what the SEC is doing, not when it can give the crypto industry what it wants much more quickly through an exemptive order.”
“As Republican SEC Commissioners have demanded for years, I considered acting through notice-and-comment rulemaking,” Chair Atkins continued. “But then I figured that we didn’t do anything through notice-and-comment rulemaking in 2025, so why start now? We spent last year enacting policy favorable to the crypto industry through staff accounting bulletins, FAQs, guidance documents, staff statements, and no-action letters—really anything other than notice-and-comment rulemaking. The public can be pesky with those comments in that process, which many claim are actually legally required. But often those public commentators disagree with what the crypto industry wants and that can be awkward. Plus, the financial industry complained so much about the short comment periods for proposed rules under my predecessor that rather than having longer periods for public consideration of proposed rules like the industry said it wanted, doing away with notice-and-comment rulemaking altogether made much for sense.”
“I was also worried the public might question my focus on innovation,” Chair Atkins added. “I used the word ‘innovation’ 14 times in my speech announcing Project Crypto. When I spoke about Project Crypto, I used the word ‘innovation” six more times. And I even gave an entire speech about innovation last year at the ‘SEC Speaks’ event. Yet the word ‘innovation’ appears only once across the four foundational federal securities laws. It is entirely absent from the Securities Act of 1933, the Investment Company Act of 1940, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. And its only mention in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is with respect to joint rules with the CFTC to permit the offer and sale of securities futures products. That’s one mention of ‘innovation’ in almost 600 pages of legislative text. Had I proposed an innovation exemption through notice-and-comment rulemaking, the public might have noted that the SEC’s mission isn’t to promote an industry by repeating over and over how ‘innovative’ it is but rather to protect investors. I would tell you how many times investor protection appears in the SEC’s statutes, but it would take too long. Plus, it would compare unfavorably to innovation, which, while not mentioned, I think is very, very important.”
On October 27, 2026, one year after his nomination to lead the CFTC, Chair Selig announces a reorganization of the CFTC’s divisions and offices:
“Shortly after becoming chair of the CFTC, I named a former CFTC attorney as my chief of staff. Although this attorney previously served at the CFTC for nine years between 2010 and 2019, the only matter he worked on that I thought merited a mention in the press release announcing his appointment was his work on bitcoin futures contracts. And I made sure to mention that work not just once, but twice,” Chair Selig said. “Then, I named a Big Law attorney as one of my senior advisors. I noted that, before joining the CFTC, this individual had worked on crypto matters for two large law firms and one crypto asset capital markets firm. I made no mention of any of his previous experiences in the traditional commodities and derivatives markets that the CFTC has overseen for 50 years because, frankly, if it didn’t involve crypto, I didn’t care.”
“After making these appointments, I launched what I called the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee,” Chair Selig continued. “I said this committee would include a balance of viewpoints representing the financial industry, regulatory bodies, financial technology providers, public interest groups, academia, and market infrastructure firms. That’s why I named as the committee’s charter members the participants on the CFTC’s CEO Innovation Council. Nothing says a balance of viewpoints, including those from regulatory bodies, public interest groups, and academics, like a body consisting entirely of the CEOs of Polymarket, Cboe Global Markets, CME Group, Nasdaq, Intercontinental Exchange, LSEG, Kalshi, Bullish, Bitnomial, Crypto.com, Kraken, and Gemini.”
“Of course, I will continue to search worldwide for a balance of viewpoints for this Advisory Committee, especially representing public interest groups and academia, but it’s difficult. So many of them fail to see the wonderful benefits of crypto which is really the same as innovation. Frankly, too many of them dwell on investor and customer protections and the incredibly long record of predatory, illegal and criminal conduct in the crypto industry. That will only interfere with unleashing crypto, er, I mean, innovation on the American public. But, alas, my search for the right people will continue.”
“In the meantime, I’ve decided to reorganize the CFTC. Instead of a Division of Enforcement, a Division of Market Oversight, and a Division of Clearing and Risk, the CFTC will now have only one division: the Division of Innovation. There’s certainly no need to worry about oversight or risk when it comes to an industry like crypto. And the CFTC had pretty much already eliminated the Division of Enforcement This just makes it official.”
On December 31, 2026, Chair Atkins announces Regulation BTC, mandating that all public companies must now buy bitcoin and become bitcoin treasury companies:
“It seems pretty clear that, because bitcoin has totally failed as an alternative currency and hasn’t found any other legitimate use over the last 15 years, the only way its price will go up is if more and more people buy it,” Chair Atkins said. “Companies like Strategy, which remade itself into a ‘bitcoin treasury company,’ are leading the way by turning their entire purpose as a company into buying crypto. That business model has proven so enormously successful that I think all public companies should follow it.”
“On February 5, 2026, after bitcoin slid 13% in 24 hours, Strategy reported a loss for the fourth quarter of 2025 of $12 billion,” Chair Atkins continued. “The bitcoin rout also meant that accumulating bitcoin backfired on numerous other bitcoin buyers. Nor was the carnage limited to companies hoarding bitcoin. BitMine Immersion Technologies, which accumulates ether, had more than $6 billion in paper losses. In the first month of 2026, the median return for crypto treasury companies generally was a 20% loss, compared with a 6% gain for the S&P 500. These statistics show the wisdom of this business model. The real losers are the shareholders of these companies, but that’s no reason to prevent this strategy from proliferating.”
“Some might say that it’s unusual or even unprecedented for the SEC to mandate that public companies adopt a specific business model like a bitcoin treasury,” Chair Atkins added. “But crypto demands demand and, sure, many appear willing to do all sorts of things to create demand when there is little if any so why not the SEC? The crypto industry needs to be propped up. And nothing else seems to be working. The administration is incredibly crypto friendly. I mean, it made me chair of the SEC—effectively placing a crypto supporter in charge of the primary federal agency that oversees the securities sector. As a result, crypto advocates appear to have gotten everything they could have dreamed of. Yet even that hasn’t been enough to prevent a crypto crash. So even though Jay Clayton, President Trump’s first SEC Chair, said it wasn’t the SEC’s job to get involved in picking industry winners and losers, I decided to adopt Regulation BTC to ensure that the SEC’s thumb stays firmly on the scale of the crypto industry, no matter the potential devastation to investors, markets, and the economy.”
“Now one last thing. Like when the path of a hurricane simply doesn’t go the way you want, sometimes you have to just take out a marker and correct things. Along those lines, I am thinking of having the SEC propose for notice and comment a requirement that bitcoin price charts be printed upside down when the price goes down and rightside up only when the price goes up. That way everyone will see the potential of a price decline as if it was a price increase. That is as it should be, since even crypto proponents now seem to agree that, whatever the original vision for bitcoin and crypto, all that matters now is to keep the prices going up. This is the type of innovation that the SEC – the Syndicate for the Empowerment of Crypto – would like to see.”
The old saying is that “life is stranger than fiction.”
As lovers of fiction at Better Markets, we didn’t take that literally…until 2025. Are these imaginary fictional scenarios unbelievable? Yes. Will they happen in real life? No…but what is real is the SEC’s and CFTC’s undeniable preoccupation if not obsession with crypto. Instead of promoting an industry for no apparent reason other than it is politically powerful, the SEC and CFTC would do well to focus on protecting customers, investors, and markets.
We hope that real life stays stranger than fiction and that none of this will come to pass!
This piece was originally run as a Substack article. Read the original post here.
