Latest news with #Atkins'
Globe and Mail
24-04-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Michael Saylor Declares New SEC Chair Paul Atkins ‘Is Good for Bitcoin'
Michael Saylor wasted no time calling it. Just two days after Paul Atkins took the helm as U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair, the Strategy (MSTR) CEO dropped a statement on X: 'SEC Chairman Paul Atkins will be good for Bitcoin.' Bitcoin bulls just got a new ally in Washington. Stay Ahead of the Market: Discover outperforming stocks and invest smarter with Top Smart Score Stocks. Filter, analyze, and streamline your search for investment opportunities using Tipranks' Stock Screener. Crypto Leaders Praise Atkins' Appointment Saylor wasn't alone in his optimism. Blue Macellari, head of digital assets at T. Rowe Price, echoed that sentiment in a Bloomberg interview. She noted the SEC's shift in tone since Atkins stepped in, pointing to 'close to six or seven roundtables' with industry professionals. Her take? 'I think that that's gonna feed into the ability to make thoughtful and considerate policies.' Vincent Liu from Kronos Research took it further. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Liu said, 'Under Chair Atkins, finalizing custody rules for digital assets is expected to provide the investor protections that institutions demand.' He added that clarifying whether digital assets are securities or commodities would 'bring much-needed clarity paving the way for the next wave of crypto product innovation.' Critics Question Atkins' Crypto Ties Not everyone is cheering. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren came in swinging during Atkins' confirmation, accusing him of 'staggeringly bad judgment' during his SEC tenure before the 2008 financial crisis. She also took issue with his consulting firm, Patomak Global Partners, which advised FTX before its collapse in 2022. Warren didn't hold back, accusing Atkins of being in a 'prime spot to deliver for all those clients who've been paying you millions of dollars for years.' Liu offered a solution for the brewing conflict. He said, 'To maintain public trust and avoid even the perception of regulatory conflict of interest, it's essential to implement clear guardrails.' That means mandatory disclosures, ethics oversight, and transparent comment periods for all crypto rules. The new SEC chair change is sure to impact crypto sentiment and, in turn, crypto prices. Investors should stay ahead of the curve and monitor market reactions through the TipRanks Cryptocurrency Center.
BBC News
12-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Colwyn Bay win JD Cymru North to seal promotion
Colwyn Bay have won the JD Cymru North title to secure promotion back to the JD Cymru went into their final game of the season at Penrhyncoch three points ahead of second placed Airbus UK Broughton and needing only a point to secure the Atkins' first half goal secured a 1-0 win for Bay, who make a swift return to the top-flight after relegation last in the Cymru North, veteran Jamie Reed scored a late goal to secure a 1-0 win for Ruthin Town, who survived at the expense of Bangor 1876.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘My brain reaches for morbidity': inside the unsettling world (and 700 Post-it notes) of artist Ed Atkins
When he was younger and his parents were out of the house, Ed Atkins used to sit on the landing and force himself to imagine all the ways they might die. 'My thinking was that if I imagined it first, then it would be very unlikely to actually happen,' says the 42-year-old artist. Atkins' parents didn't succumb to any of the ways he had invented. But during the final year of his master's course, his father, Philip, was diagnosed with cancer and died six months later, during Atkins' degree show, in 2009. 'It's a huge thing, obviously, losing your father,' says the artist. 'And it started to feed into what I was reading and was interested in. His death, and death generally, is in all of my work.' That fact may not be immediately apparent to those encountering Atkins' work. He has spent the last two decades at the forefront of digital art, creating strange videos that are humorous, creepy – and likely to leave you feeling a little untethered. Atkins likes to inhabit CGI avatars and perform as them. In 2014's Ribbons, he became a bare-chested, tattooed smoker known as Dave with a penchant for singing maudlin Randy Newman songs. In Pianowork 2, from 2023, he took on the role of himself – albeit an uncanny valley version of himself. We watch the virtual Ed trying to pick out the notes of Klavierstück 2, an experimental composition by the Swiss musician Jürg Frey. His sighs, his facial hairs and his pained expressions all appear to be amplified. Atkins' films are often interspersed with poetic soliloquies, cryptic subtitles and intrusive sounds – a burst of tinnitus here, someone farting there. They're both moving and confusing. You're not really supposed to 'get' them, says Atkins. Even he can be unsure of what they mean. What he wants, instead, is to create certain emotional sensations within the viewer – 'a slightly unmoored feeling'. And what could be more unmooring than grief? Atkins' career highlights are about to appear in a survey show at Tate Britain in London. Alongside the digital works will be self-portraits, text pieces, embroideries and a series of Post-it notes he drew on for his daughter's packed lunch boxes during the pandemic. There is also a new work that addresses his dad's death more directly: a two-hour film in which the actor Toby Jones reads aloud the cancer diary Philip wrote during his final months. In the 'beautifully written' journal, Philip discusses fellow patients on his ward, adjusts to life under the care of others and comes to the startling realisation that he had been loved, and that nothing could be more important. 'A lot of weeping and truth,' is how Atkins describes it. 'It's a lot. But it's also universal. Many people are going through that same thing. One of the last lines in the diary is, 'When and how does one begin to think about dying?' That's literally days before he dies. You can never come to terms with it.' People at the very end of life can experience extraordinary clarity. In his final TV interview before he died of pancreatic cancer, the writer Dennis Potter talked about witnessing the 'blossomest blossom'. Atkins hopes he can attain such wisdom before he's dying himself. Perhaps having someone read the diary out loud is an attempt to get there. We meet in Tate Britain's auditorium, a week before the show opens. Atkins – who's wearing a trenchcoat, pinstripe shirt, Adidas three-stripe joggers and a gold hoop in each ear – is extremely affable. But he tends to respond to questions with ideas rather than answers. Talking to him can be like experiencing his art: easy resolutions remain forever out of your grasp. Another way to get to know Atkins is to read his new memoir, Flower. Be warned, however: it is unlike any memoir you've read before – 89 pages long and written as one long paragraph of observations, it reveals its author through a series of likes, anxieties, routines and what he calls 'sexless kinks'. Among other peculiar facts, we learn that Atkins has an inordinately strong bladder, enjoys eating wraps from pharmacies and has a failsafe method for stealing expensive wine from big shops. It can feel thrillingly intimate and honest, even though it is patently absurd. 'Nobody talks about having a strong bladder in their autobiography,' laughs Atkins. 'Not unless their bladder exploded or something. What an insane place to try to find truth! So I was interested in what people qualify as worth telling.' For someone who has long operated behind avatars and technology, Atkins admits that putting this book out there is unnerving, especially as, buried within the stream of mundane information, are morsels of shocking revelation – not least his disordered relationship with food and his hatred of his physical appearance. 'It's hard to say out loud,' he says, tentatively, 'but I don't like my body or the way I look at all. I think about it too much. Some of that is an inheritance, I think, from family stuff.' Was it a struggle to make the self-portraits (his head rendered in red pencil on yellow legal paper, say) that appear in the show? No, he replies. 'What's hard is leaving the hotel this morning. It's got an annoying array of mirrors, so I'm seeing angles of myself where I'm bulging in ways that are just awful. Whereas fastidious attention, trying to capture a bit of razor burn on the cheek, that's really exciting.' He pauses. 'They're going to do photos for this piece in a minute and I will not look at them. I will never look at them.' One thing that does come through in Flower is Atkins' utter adoration for his children (he has a daughter and a son). It's a love so strong not even the memoir's deliberately monotonous and flat tone can mask it. 'A received wisdom is that having children is maybe the end of something,' Atkins says, 'but my best work has all been made since I had children.' Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Atkins lives with them and his partner in Copenhagen, but he grew up in the village of Stonesfield near Oxford. His mum taught art and his dad was a graphic artist, so it's unsurprising that he displayed a gift for drawing and painting. 'All artists start out because they're good at drawing,' he says, 'and then art school unmoors everything. It takes a long time to get back, if you ever do, to that point of pleasure.' He says having kids helped him get there: 'I love how every gesture that my daughter or son makes on a piece of paper is better than most art, just by dint of its complete freedom.' That's why the 700-odd Post-it notes he drew on for his daughter during lockdown have ended up forming the centrepiece of the show. He never intended these cartoonish missives to go on display, but then he realised: 'It's the thing I can really hang my hat on and say, 'This is me.'' Shortly before this interview, Atkins found himself crying after showing a curator a shot of his son on his phone. Photographs do that to him. 'Maybe this is at the core of some [of the work], the sense of representations being grotesque in relation to the real thing – in relation to a living, beautiful two-year-old.' In Flower, he describes the images he keeps on his phone as pictures of his 'dead children' – a bracing description, given they are very much alive. He says he used that term because looking at flat images of them, when they're not around, makes him spin out. 'My brain immediately reaches for this horrible morbidity: what if they're dead? Even the presence of a phone in my pocket makes me worry it's about to ring with some news. It's sort of ridiculous. And it's not a way to live!' He laughs, then adds: 'Having a kid is like suddenly your heart is living outside your body and it's the most vulnerable thing, you know?' I do. I tell him I'm also prone to morbid thoughts – that sometimes I will look at a photomontage that my phone has generated featuring my kids and feel as if I'm watching it after they've died. Atkins nods. 'The mechanisms used, such as the slow cross-fading and the nostalgic music, is the language of remembrance. It's an 'Oscars in memoriam' situation. It's charged with loss even if no loss exists.' There's something very Ed Atkins about this whole conversation: two men who've just met, sitting in an auditorium talking about their deepest anxieties. I can't tell if it's his manner or something about his work, but Atkins is an easy person to open up to. In fact, it reminds me of one of his most affecting works: The Worm, from 2021, in which we hear a real-life conversation between the artist and his mother. I say real-life although, in the video, Atkins is inhabiting the avatar of a sharply dressed chatshow host from a bygone era, smoking Silk Cut. During their conversation, Atkins' mother talks about her struggles with depression and how it also affected her own mother. She reveals that she's never really felt like a 'bona fide woman' and adds that Atkins' father was never comfortable with the way he looked either. It's delicate stuff: raw and tender. 'That was difficult for me,' laughs the artist, referring to the process of making the video, 'because I was wearing a Lycra onesie and there were two German men in the room next door listening in.' The piece raises all sorts of questions about emotional inheritance, human connection and what constitutes a life. This, really, is the heart of what Atkins does. When he started out, Atkins was often called upon as a spokesperson for digital art – and he was happy to oblige, aware that it provided opportunities to show his work. But the emotional side of what he did was often not at the forefront of these discussions. 'The truth is, technology in and of itself is not interesting to me,' he says. 'I don't actually care at all about computers. Which is tricky because people are always asking, 'What do you think about AI?' And, honestly, I don't think about it.' Atkins actually believes that, for all the giant leaps being made right now, technology will never come close to replicating what it means to be human. 'It sounds almost religious,' he says, 'but I don't think any machine, even in a million years, will be like the real thing. It will never be a person. That's really my faith.' Ed Atkins is at Tate Britain, London, 2 April to 25 August. Flower is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Forbes
27-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Senate Grills Trump's SEC, OCC, Treasury Picks On Crypto and Financial Markets
In a high-stakes hearing on March 27, 2025, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee spotlighted a major shift in the direction of digital asset regulation, capital markets oversight, and banking policy—one that could reshape the future of finance. The committee heard testimony from three consequential nominees in President Trump's second-term administration: Paul Atkins for Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jonathan Gould for Comptroller of the Currency, and Luke Pettit for Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions. Together, their testimony signals a significant policy realignment in the executive branch of the United States government, one that could finally bring regulatory clarity and momentum in Congress to the long-awaited legislative framework for digital assets. Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner with deep institutional knowledge and industry experience, made it clear that crypto regulation would be front and center if he's confirmed to lead the Commission. In his testimony, Atkins emphasized in his written testimony that 'a top priority of my chairmanship will be to work with my fellow Commissioners and Congress to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets through a rational, coherent, and principled approach.'. Atkins' statement aligns with criticisms from both sides of the aisle that the SEC under Gary Gensler relied too heavily on regulation by enforcement. That strategy, critics argue, stifled innovation, harmed investors, and discouraged responsible industry development in the United States, forcing innovation overseas. Atkins' approach, informed by his past tenure as a commissioner and his experience in the private sector, leans toward clear rules of the road. He highlighted the urgent need to 'reset priorities and return common sense to the SEC,' distancing himself from Gensler's term and making the case that over-politicized and ambiguous regulation harms capital formation and investor protection. Importantly, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, reiterated his strong support for Atkins earlier this year. Scott emphasized Atkins' track record, noting that he has long supported policies aimed at boosting capital formation and employment. Scott added that Atkins' deep regulatory experience positions him to help address what he described as the 'damage' done to capital markets under Gary Gensler's leadership. He further remarked that Atkins recognizes the growing demand for regulatory clarity in the digital asset space, an issue affecting millions of Americans seeking access to this emerging asset class. Scott's remarks reflect bipartisan concern over the SEC's posture toward digital assets under the leadership of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. In a recent Yahoo News interview, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a leading Democratic voice on crypto policy—and co-sponsor of Senator Bill Hagerty's stablecoin legislation (the GENIUS Act) echoed that sentiment. Senator Gillibrand praised Atkins and underscored the need for comprehensive legislation on stablecoins and crypto market structure. Though she personally does not own Bitcoin, Gillibrand emphasized the need to create a framework that both protects consumers and enables innovation to thrive. Jonathan Gould, nominee for Comptroller of the Currency, focused his testimony on maintaining the relevance and resilience of the national banking system. Gould, who has served as OCC chief counsel under both Republican and Democratic administrations, vowed to 'depoliticize the banking system' and 'embrace innovation within the agency and the banking system.' That innovation includes supporting responsible engagement with digital assets and modernizing the tools banks use to serve an increasingly digital economy. Gould's experience drafting the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018 provides a solid foundation for rethinking how banks interact with emerging asset classes. Similarly, Luke Pettit, nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions, brings an international and human-centered view to financial regulation. In a deeply personal and patriotic statement, Pettit reminded the committee that financial regulation is ultimately about people—those 'buying a home, starting a business, accessing credit, or saving for retirement.' He pledged to uphold a financial sector that 'fosters economic growth, freedom, and opportunity for all Americans.'. His grounding in both the Senate and the Federal Reserve suggests that Pettit is well positioned to balance market innovation with systemic safety; particularly in areas like financial education, community development, and digital infrastructure. Taken together, these nominations are not business as usual. They represent a policy pivot. In contrast to the previous administration's cautious and often adversarial stance on crypto, the Trump administration appears poised to implement a more industry and innovation-first approach to digital asset regulation. This shift could finally make room for legislation that has been years in the making, including stablecoin and market structure bills championed in both chambers. What makes this moment different? It's not just the nominees, it is the convergence of legislative pressure, bipartisan frustration, and increasing public optimism and demand. According to the 2025 annual Cryptocurrency Adoption and Consumer Sentiment Report, crypto ownership has nearly doubled in the three years since the end of 2021. In 2025, approximately 28% of American adults, or about 65 million people, own cryptocurrencies. And with crypto-friendly voices emerging on both sides of the aisle, the possibility of bipartisan legislation is no longer beyond the realm of possibility. While the appointments of Atkins, Gould, and Pettit signal a clear intent to reset the regulatory posture from enforcement-first to engagement-driven, this executive momentum must be matched by Congressional action. The American constitutional system divides powers between branches for a reason: the executive branch can implement policy and steer regulatory priorities, but it is Congress that writes the law. Agencies like the SEC and OCC do not inherently possess lawmaking power; rather, they derive their authority through legislation passed by Congress (commonly known as enabling legislation or organic statutes). These statutes define the jurisdiction and scope of agency powers and establish the legal boundaries within which regulations can be developed and enforced. Without modernized laws that explicitly account for the features of digital assets, agencies are left interpreting statutes drafted long before the invention of blockchain, often leading to patchwork. If confirmed, Atkins, Gould, and Pettit would represent one of the most crypto-savvy regulatory lineups to serve concurrently in key financial oversight roles. Whether their collective experience and stated openness to reform will translate into effective, forward-looking policy for a wide swath of consumers and investors—beyond the investor class—remains to be seen. Still, the real test lies ahead. Will Congress seize the opportunity to pass meaningful legislation? Will regulatory agencies translate the pro-innovation rhetoric of their probable leaders into concrete, consistent rules that the industry can rely on? For now, all eyes are on the Senate.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘The policy advocate running the show': Trump's SEC pick draws concern from the left
Paul Atkins has helped Wall Street banks, cryptocurrency startups and countless financial industry groups navigate Washington regulations. Now, as President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is poised to become the one crafting the rules. Atkins is viewed across the political spectrum as a highly qualified choice for chair and is likely to be approved by the Senate. But his work advising the financial world over the decade and a half since he left the agency after serving as a commissioner is stirring concern on the left that he'll be overseeing many of his one-time clients as he seeks to undo the sweeping legacy of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. 'We certainly need people who are knowledgeable and experienced, but that's different from having spent a career [working] on behalf of the very people who will come in front of the agency and who may be future clients as well,' Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, which will hold his nomination hearing Thursday, said in an interview. 'The American people deserve to know that whoever represents them in these agencies is working on behalf of the American people — not past and future clients.' In a letter Sunday, Warren pressed Atkins for details about his work advising clients through his influential consultancy, Patomak Global Partners, and questioned whether he would be able to avoid conflicts of interest as SEC chair. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, another senior member of the Banking Committee, said, 'I have a lot of questions about Paul Atkins' prior experience and his ability to lead an SEC that is independent, transparent, and rigorous in fulfilling its duty to protect Americans and the integrity of our financial markets." The concerns underscore a broader fear among progressives about the Trump administration's ties to the business world, a connection that is bringing about a far friendlier era for corporate America after many industries came under fire from President Joe Biden's watchdogs like Gensler. Incoming SEC chairs often hail from financial companies or law firms and face questions about potential conflicts. But Atkins' ties to Wall Street are far from ordinary, critics say. Patomak has done work for a who's who of finance. Atkins' financial disclosures, released Tuesday, showed that his consultancy has worked for Goldman Sachs, Fidelity Investments and Guggenheim Partners, among many other major firms. And that's in addition to its work for Washington trade groups like the Investment Company Institute, the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — all of which regularly lobby and appear before the SEC. He has served as an expert witness for companies fighting the SEC in court like AT&T and the high-speed trading firm Virtu Financial, according to court records. (Atkins recently stepped away from the Virtu case, which is ongoing.) And he's been a ubiquitous voice in high-profile SEC policy fights over everything from climate disclosure and crypto enforcement to corporate penalties, potentially heralding a pivotal era of deregulation at the agency. 'He's been arguing for policy,' said Bart Naylor, financial policy advocate for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. 'And now, you have the policy advocate running the show.' To be certain, Atkins is widely seen as one of the foremost experts on the SEC and financial regulation. He served as a commissioner in the 2000s, after previously working at the agency for then-Chairs Richard Breeden, a Republican, and Arthur Levitt, a Democrat. He has been called 'the intellectual godfather' for Republicans on capital markets policy. For many, Atkins' time working with industry is a significant asset. "Politically motivated attacks from leftist professional partisans over so-called 'conflicts' are wholly unsurprising, and in fact are an expected play out of their failed manifesto," a transition spokesperson said of the concerns about Atkins' background. "How professional politicians could twist years of experience against a highly qualified nominee shows just how broken politics in Washington has become." The spokesperson, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, said Atkins has gone through a review of his assets with both the SEC's ethics office and the Office of Government Ethics and is "in full compliance." Former SEC Chair Mary Jo White, who led the agency during the Obama administration, said Atkins' industry experience "will make him a stronger chair." "If you have no issues, you may not have the background for the position," White said in an interview. Atkins founded Patomak in 2009 after leaving the SEC. In the years since, he has built the firm into a highly sought-after consulting shop, advising a range of clients on everything from due diligence on potential investments to preparation for SEC examinations. Located just a short walk from the White House, the firm's ranks are filled with former senior officials from the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Capitol Hill. They include former CFTC Commissioner Jill Sommers, former acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika and former SEC Commissioner Kathleen Casey. Other Patomak clients from over the years have included Bank of America, Barclays and even Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX, according to Atkins' financial disclosures and public records. A person familiar with the matter, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, said Patomak was specifically an adviser to FTX's U.S.-regulated derivatives business, which ultimately survived the company's eventual implosion. In his ethics agreement, Atkins stated that he plans to divest his more than $25 million stake in the firm, if confirmed. He has also agreed to recuse himself from any matter involving Patomak or anyone represented by the firm for one year after his resignation, unless previously approved to do so. Still, for Dennis Kelleher, who leads the financial reform advocacy group Better Markets, Atkins is 'a classic case of the Washington revolving door.' He is 'going to be in a position to deliver for his clients on the very positions that he represented them in opposition to the SEC,' Kelleher said. Public Citizen has criticized Atkins' selection as SEC chair over concerns about his past work with the crypto industry. And Warren wrote to Atkins that his relationships with former clients 'may raise doubts' about his impartiality as SEC chair. But others like former SEC Commissioner Joe Grundfest question whether Atkins' case is all that unusual. Many of the agency's leaders — from Joseph Kennedy, its first chair, to Jay Clayton, who led the SEC in the last Trump administration — have faced similar questions about potential conflicts. And as long as Atkins follows the appropriate ethics rules, Grundfest said, he should be treated no differently. Whether lawmakers like his policies, however, is another matter. "Look, I don't think there's ever been a more transparent candidate for the SEC chairmanship than Paul Atkins in the sense of he's got a very long record," Grundfest said. "He's written many articles, he's given many speeches, he's written many dissents, and my expectation is that he will be authentic and he will try to follow through on the points of view that he's articulated. Now, some members might like that. Some members might not like that. But from that perspective, he's an open book." Eleanor Mueller contributed to this report.
