SEC Draft Plan Would Curb Enforcement Reach and Cement Atkins's Crypto Turn

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has put its turn under Chairman Paul Atkins into writing, publishing a draft strategic plan that would narrow the agency's enforcement reach, build rules for crypto, and widen access to private markets.

The regulator released the document this week and set a July 2 deadline for public comment, according to the SEC.

The plan organizes the agency's work around three goals, and it reads as a formal version of the priorities Atkins has pushed since he took over the commission in April 2025.

At its center sits a return to what the SEC calls its core three-part mission, protecting investors, keeping markets fair and efficient, and helping companies raise capital. Atkins said the agency "will not stray from this core three-part mission."

Enforcement Reach Pulled Back to Fraud and Manipulation

One goal would shift the SEC's enforcement approach back to what the document describes as Congress's original intent, policing fraud and manipulation rather than stretching its authority through one-off actions. The plan also calls for periodic, backward-looking reviews of existing rules.

That language formalizes a change that has been underway for more than a year.

The agency dismissed seven crypto enforcement actions between February and May 2025, including cases against Coinbase, Binance, and the current Commission has cast its predecessor's work as a misallocation of resources.

Atkins has separately argued the prior SEC would shoot first and ask questions later.

The numbers track the rhetoric. Although the SEC logged 456 enforcement actions in fiscal 2025, much of the story was what it walked away from, and one outside analysis found enforcement actions against public companies fell about 30% in fiscal 2025 compared with the prior year.

A Formal Rulebook for Crypto and Tokenization

The draft lists, as a specific objective, giving digital assets and distributed ledger technology a firm regulatory footing through what it calls a rational, coherent, and principled approach.

Atkins has used nearly identical wording before, so the goal reads as a codification of an existing priority rather than a new one.

Here too, the agency has already been moving. The SEC defined its crypto rules in March 2026, an approach that pushed more compliance responsibility onto brokers by tying a token's status to how it is marketed and used.

It has also clarified the treatment of tokenized stocks, and Atkins has backed "super-app" trading platforms that combine trading, lending, and staking.

Private Markets and Retirement Accounts in the Crosshairs

The same goal would expand access to private markets and open new capital-raising pathways, language that points to one of the more contested items on the chairman's agenda.

Atkins has asked staff to revisit accredited-investor rules written 23 years ago, noting that private markets grew from $11.6 trillion to $30.8 trillion over the past decade.

That effort overlaps with a White House push. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 directing regulators to clear the path for 401(k) participants to allocate part of their portfolios to private equity, real estate, digital assets, and other alternatives.

Not everyone is on board. Senator Elizabeth Warren has warned that loosening the rules risks exposing many more investors to the heightened risks that come with private offerings, a counterweight that is likely to surface in the comment file. i

EDGAR and Legacy Systems Face a Technology Overhaul

The third goal targets the agency's own plumbing. The SEC says a review of legacy systems, including its EDGAR filing platform, plus newer infrastructure will improve data integrity and cut operational risk, according to the document.

It adds that the responsible use of artificial intelligence and blockchain could sharpen oversight and lower costs, a claim the plan does not quantify.

The public can weigh in through July 2, with submissions referencing file number DSP-3 by the agency's online form, email, or mail. The SEC says it built the draft using input from meetings with members of Congress, investors, businesses, market participants, and academics.

Final adoption, and how far the agency follows through, will depend in part on what those comments say.