2 entries tagged paul atkins. All writing.
OCTOBER 1, 2026 The Vault Rule Got Rewritten the Day Before She Left Today the SEC proposed the rule that decides whether your financial advisor can actually hold crypto for you, and it does something the custody rule hasn't done since it was written in response to Bernie Madoff: let the advisor be the vault. It also quietly blesses something the industry has been doing in a legal gray zone for years. The vote landed on commissioner Hester Peirce's second-to-last day on the job, and her own statement reads like a closing argument. SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 The Genie Gets a Five-Year Lease Yesterday I wrote that the SEC and CFTC would build crypto rules without Congress. This morning the same friend who started that conversation texted me the SEC's "Innovation Exemption" with two words of commentary — "the genie" — and a five-year number. He's right about the number. Here's what the order actually does, the caps nobody is quoting, and the other thing the SEC did in the same building on the same day that matters more than the order.