Bitcoin has limped into August following a sudden sell-off that even a jaw-dropping intervention by legendary billionaire Ray Dalio couldn’t reverse.
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The bitcoin price has fallen under $112,000 per bitcoin this last week, down from a peak of $123,000 in July (though traders are bracing for a fresh BlackRock earthquake).
Now, as fears swirl around the future of the U.S. dollar, bitcoin and crypto traders have been warned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) newly unveiled “Project Crypto” isn’t priced in.
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Paul Atkins was named chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by U.S. president Donald Trump earlier this year, pushing the bitcoin price and crypto market higher.
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“The most bullish document I’ve read on crypto wasn’t written by some yahoo on Twitter. It was written by the chairman of the SEC,” Matt Hougan, the chief investment officer of Bitwise, wrote in a note posted to X after Atkins published a speech he gave on July 31 at the America First Policy Institute about how crypto will be integrated into the financial markets.
“I was caught off-guard by the speech,” Hougan wrote, adding: “I can’t imagine reading the speech and not wanting to allocate a significant portion of your capital to crypto. If it wasn’t priced in for me, I’m going to guess it wasn’t priced in for others.”
The bitcoin price had already surged following the resignation of former SEC chair Gary Gensler in January, climbing again when Atkins was sworn in by Trump in April.
Last week, SEC chair Paul Atkins, picked by U.S. president Donald Trump to replace the crypto critic Gensler, unveiled Project Crypto, a radical plan to carve out a niche for crypto in U.S. securities laws and embed blockchain technology into the financial system.
The SEC’s new Project Crypto initiative marks the “boldest and the most transformative crypto vision ever laid out by a sitting SEC chair,” analysts at research and brokerage company Bernstein wrote in a note seen by The Block.
“As Atkins puts it, the winds of change are blowing,” Bernstein’s Gautam Chhugani wrote. “In our view, Project Crypto upends the concept of a regulatory moat in capital markets, allowing equal opportunity to new players to participate and innovate in security markets. It is time to upgrade the financial system from online to onchain.”
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The bitcoin price has rocketed higher over the last year, setting an all-time high of $123,000 per bitcoin last month.
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In the speech, titled “American Leadership in the Digital Finance Revolution: Evolution of Capital Markets—From Buttonwood to Blockchain,” Atkins claimed U.S. financial regulation must evolve or risk being left behind.
“That is why I am launching Project Crypto and directing the SEC’s policy divisions to work with the Crypto Task Force, led by Commissioner Peirce, to swiftly develop proposals to implement the [President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets] recommendations,” Atkins said.
“Project Crypto will help ensure that the United States remains the best place in the world to start a business, develop cutting-edge technologies, and participate in capital markets. We will reshore the crypto businesses that fled our country, particularly those that were crippled by the previous administration’s regulation-by-enforcement crusade and ‘Operation Chokepoint 2.0.’ Whether an incumbent or a new entrant, the SEC welcomes all market participants who are hungry to innovate.”
Crypto companies began complaining of banks withholding services from them in a way that felt like it was coordinated in 2022.
Nic Carter, a crypto venture capitalist, then coined the term Operation Choke Point 2.0, referring to an Obama administration clandestine operation to debank undesirable industries including firearms dealers and payday lenders in the early 2010s.
Since retaking the White House, Trump—who has fully embraced bitcoin and crypto over the last year—has promised to dismantle Biden-era restrictions of crypto markets and companies, calling himself the first “crypto president.”