At an important event held by the Economic Club of Washington, Paul S. Atkins, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), delivered a keynote speech marking his first anniversary in office. In the speech, he comprehensively reviewed the regulatory reform measures since taking office, clearly proposing a new regulatory framework centered around the three strategies of "A-C-T". The aim is to reverse the past chaos of excessive regulatory expansion, return the SEC to its statutory core mission, consolidate the leading position of the U.S. global capital market, and simultaneously chart a clear path for the regulation of digital assets.

As a senior practitioner with decades of experience at the SEC, Atkins bluntly stated in his speech that over the past years, the SEC's regulatory practices have gradually deviated from the core mission entrusted by Congress - to protect investors, maintain a fair, orderly, and efficient market, and promote capital formation. The overlapping regulatory rules and unclear jurisdictional boundaries have not only significantly increased market friction and corporate compliance costs but also suppressed innovation vitality, leading a large number of companies to choose to remain in private markets or go public overseas. The attractiveness of the US capital market continues to decline. According to his disclosure, in 1994, the number of listed companies on US exchanges exceeded 7,800. However, by the time he took office last year, this figure had decreased by about 40%. At the same time, about 40% of Americans do not hold stocks, making it difficult for them to share the dividends of corporate growth.

To address this dilemma, Atkins proposed a reform vision of a "new era for the SEC" at the beginning of his tenure and introduced three major strategies, namely "A-C-T", as the overarching principle for reshaping the regulatory system. These three pillars are independent yet closely interrelated, covering three core directions: modernization of regulation, clarification of boundaries, and reconstruction of the rule system, and permeating all reform measures of the SEC.

"Advance"  is the core focus of this reform, with a particular emphasis on adapting digital assets to market innovation. Atkins criticized the previous administration for the SEC's regulatory approach in the digital asset sector, which was characterized by "enforcement over rules," leading to a significant outflow of innovative businesses to overseas jurisdictions with more lenient regulatory environments. In response, the current SEC has launched "Project Crypto" to synchronize securities regulatory rules with on-chain trading trends. Recently, it has released five classification standards for cryptocurrency tokens, clarifying that four of them do not constitute securities, providing the market with long-awaited clear guidance. Additionally, an "innovation exemption" mechanism is soon to be introduced, allowing market participants to advance pilot on-chain trading of tokenized securities within a compliant framework. Beyond the digital asset sector, the SEC is also advancing reforms to the share structure of mutual fund ETFs, which is expected to save taxpayers billions of dollars. Furthermore, a cross-border task force has been established to address regulatory evasion in a globalized market, achieving global coordination in investor protection. Moreover, in response to the continuous influx of capital into the private equity market, the SEC is closely monitoring liquidity pressures and valuation transparency issues in the private credit sector, committed to providing investors with more comprehensive safeguards and a wider range of investment options.

Clarifying the boundaries of regulatory jurisdiction is the key to addressing regulatory fragmentation and overlapping authorities. Atkins pointed out that for decades, regulatory ambiguity, like unreasonable regulation, has stifled market innovation. To this end, he signed a historic memorandum of understanding with Michael S. Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to unify the key regulatory definitions of the two agencies, clarify their respective jurisdictions, focus on coordinating regulatory actions in cross-cutting areas such as digital assets, promote secure data sharing between the two agencies, end the dilemma of dual registration and repeated compliance for enterprises, and transform long-standing regulatory vacuum zones into fertile ground for innovation to take root and grow.

Reinventing the regulatory system (Transform) centers on returning to the fundamental principle of "importance" and easing burdens on the market. Atkins stated that in the past, many regulatory requirements deviated from the core needs of rational investors and became mere formalities that added unnecessary burdens. To address this, the SEC has withdrawn 14 highly criticized rule proposals, systematically reviewed the information disclosure system, eliminated ineffective regulatory requirements, and focused on the core information that investors truly care about. To reverse the declining trend in the number of listed companies, Atkins proposed the "Make IPOs Great Again" agenda, which plans to introduce several measures: establishing a "green channel" for IPO regulation, expanding the scope of regulatory convenience measures for small enterprises, simplifying the registration process for listed companies on hold, allowing companies to choose whether to submit regulatory documents quarterly or semi-annually, and reducing the costs of listing and compliance for enterprises. At the same time, the SEC has reoriented its enforcement efforts, abandoning the "quantity-oriented" approach and focusing on fraudulent behavior and actual investor harm. It has intensified the accountability of individual offenders and implemented more precise enforcement to safeguard market integrity.

Atkins emphasized in his speech that the reforms of the past year have achieved remarkable results. The SEC has completely abandoned the regulatory radicalism of the previous administration, recalibrated its institutional positioning, and returned to its statutory mission. However, he also admitted that the reforms have not yet been fully implemented. In the future, the SEC will continue to follow the current reform direction and continuously promote regulatory optimization through an active rule-making agenda. As the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States approaches, the SEC will be guided by the ACT strategy to promote the US capital market to continue leading the world in market depth, innovation vitality, and wealth distribution efficiency, fulfilling its long-standing market commitment.

This speech is not only a review of Atkins' achievements since taking office one year ago, but also marks a new stage of "streamlined, clear, and innovation-adaptive" financial regulation in the United States. The implementation of the ACT strategy will further clarify the regulatory boundaries of digital assets, reduce market compliance costs, and stimulate innovation vitality. It not only maintains the bottom line of investor protection but also injects new momentum into the long-term healthy development of the US capital market.