Trump chooses the new President of the SEC, and Bitcoin soars

Yesterday Donald Trump chose the new president of the SEC. 

During the night, the price of Bitcoin surpassed for the first time in its entire history the $100,000 mark.

The new Presidente della SEC

The new president of the SEC chosen by Trump will be Paul Atkins.

Currently, the president of the U.S. agency that oversees the stock exchanges is still Gary Gensler, a Democrat appointed by Joe Biden in 2021. 

However, Gensler himself, after Trump’s electoral victory, stated that he will resign on January 20, 2025, the day Donald Trump will take office as the new president of the USA.

Initially, the new president did not seem to have Atkins in mind as the new man to lead the SEC, so it was a difficult choice. 

Atkins himself had reservations about accepting the position, because after a presidency like Gensler’s, which was heavily criticized and full of shadows, the role of the new SEC chairman could be difficult, as he needs to rebuild the agency’s reputation. 

The comunicato di Trump sul nuovo Presidente della SEC

Trump announced the appointment of Atkins on his social network, Truth.

He wrote that he is pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Atkins as the next chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission.

He added that Atkins is a proven leader for common-sense regulations, and that he believes in the promise of strong and innovative capital markets, which meet the needs of investors, and provide capital to make the USA the best economy in the world. 

Furthermore, he explicitly specified: 

“It also recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are essential to make America greater than ever.”

Digital assets are cryptocurrencies, in addition to NFTs and tokenized assets, and Trump himself shortly before the elections launched his DeFi project. 

Paul Atkins

As revealed by Trump himself, Paul S. Atkins is the CEO and founder of Patomak Global Partners, a consulting firm for risk management. 

He is also co-president of the Token Alliance of the Digital Chamber, since 2017, and has worked and studied the digital asset sector. 

Even more importantly, he has already been a commissioner of the same SEC from 2002 to 2008, under the Bush presidency, and at that time he supported transparency and investor protection. 

He was born in North Carolina, but he grew up in Florida. 

He graduated in law and in the past worked as a lawyer in New York. At the time, he dealt with corporate transactions, including public securities offerings (IPO), mergers, and acquisitions. 

Before being appointed as SEC commissioner in 2022, he had assisted various financial services companies in improving their compliance with SEC regulations, and collaborated with law enforcement to investigate and rectify situations where investors had been harmed. 

Therefore, he can be defined in all respects as a man of experience in the sector, and he does not seem active in politics. 

The effects on the crypto markets

To tell the truth, yesterday, after Trump’s announcement, the crypto markets did not immediately react to this news. 

Partly it is because the appointment of Atkins was already in the air, and perhaps it had already been priced in by the markets, partly it is because the rise last night is also due to other factors. 

One of the most important factors that pushed the price of Bitcoin up yesterday was the statements of the current Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, who will probably not be replaced by Trump (it was Trump himself who appointed him in 2018). 

Powell explicitly compared Bitcoin to gold in the financial markets, clearly stating that Bitcoin is not a competitor of the dollar. 

These two things combined have cast optimism on the crypto markets, but they have not immediately triggered the increase in the price of BTC.

The surpassing of $100,000

To give the final push, in fact, were the Asian markets. 

At the close of the US stock markets yesterday, the price of Bitcoin had only managed to return to those $99,000 that it had already reached a couple of weeks ago. 

So the two good news items coming from the USA were only able to recover all the losses of the past weeks, moreover decidedly light. 

The turning point occurred during the night, specifically just after the opening of the Chinese stock exchanges. 

Last night the Hang Seng index of the Hong Kong stock exchange fell by about 1%, and on the Hong Kong stock exchange there are ETFs on Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

The key point is that precisely for today, December 5, 2024, a turning point was expected for the trend of the Bitcoin price, and as soon as the Asian markets opened, this turning point manifested itself. 

The price of Bitcoin not only broke through the 100,000$ barrier, but with momentum it pushed up to reach a new all-time high almost at 104,000$. 

In other words, the news from last night paved the way, which was then followed by the Asian markets overnight.