Newly-confirmed United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins is slated to speak at the agency’s upcoming crypto roundtable on Friday, the organization announced on April 23.

New SEC Chair To Give Opening Remarks At Roundtable

Titled “Know Your Custodian: Key Considerations for Crypto Custody,” the federal regulator is set to kick-off the roundtable with opening remarks from Atkins, Crypto Task Force Chief of Staff Richard Gabbert, and Commissioners Hester Peirce, Mark Uyeda, and Caroline Crenshaw.

Friday’s roundtable marks the third in a series launched by the SEC’s newly-established Crypto Task Force which seeks to develop a “comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto” by collaborating with the public “to set the SEC on a sensible regulatory path.”

The event will be held at SEC headquarters in D.C. from 1-5 p.m. and will feature Etana Custody Inc. CEO Brandon Russell, 1kx General Counsel Larry Florio, and others

“It is important for the SEC to grapple with custody issues, which are some of the most challenging as we seek to integrate crypto assets into our regulatory structure,” said Peirce, leader of the Crypto Task Force. “We look forward to hearing from experts on these important issues.”

SEC Shifts Crypto Regulatory Course

The latest SEC task force stands in opposition to the agency’s previous regulation-by-enforcement approach toward the digital asset sector under former head Gary Gensler.

However, the regulator has pulled back on its enforcement strategy in recent months, dropping litigation against several crypto industry mainstays such as Kraken, Coinbase, and more.

Paul Atkins, who was formally sworn in as SEC chair on Tuesday, is largely seen as a crypto-friendly choice to lead the agency.

“A top priority of my chairmanship will be to provide a formal regulatory foundation for digital assets,” Atkins said during his swearing-in on Tuesday.

“Through a rational, coherent, and principled approach, we will work to ensure that the United States is the best and most secure place in the world to do business,” he added.

The post SEC’s Paul Atkins Leads Friday Crypto Custody Roundtable Amid Regulation Shift appeared first on Cryptonews.

Regulators in the United States, Russia, and Canada shared updates that could influence their approach to cryptocurrency oversight.

SEC Roundtable to Explore Custody and Crypto Regulation

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled the full agenda and panel lineup for its upcoming crypto roundtable, scheduled for April 25.

The event signals a deepening institutional focus on crypto regulation, particularly around asset custody standards and investor protections.

The roundtable will be split into two key sessions: “Custody Through Broker-Dealers and Beyond” and “Investment Adviser and Investment Company Custody.”

These topics address how custodians of crypto assets should be regulated under U.S. securities laws.

Zach Zweihorn, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, will moderate the discussions.

The roundtable will begin with opening remarks from Richard Gabbert, Chief of Staff for the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, along with senior SEC figures including Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda, Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, and Commissioner Hester Peirce.

The discussions are expected to influence future SEC guidance on custody rules, especially as crypto continues to blend with traditional finance through broker-dealer models and investment advisers.

Russia Urged to Build Homegrown Stablecoins

A senior Russian finance official called for the development of domestic stablecoins following a clampdown on USDT wallets linked to the country.

The statement follows U.S.-based stablecoin issuer Tether freezing several wallets associated with Russian users, causing disruptions in cross-border digital payments.

Osman Kabaloev, deputy head of the Financial Policy Department at Russia’s Finance Ministry, said the incident showed the risks of relying on foreign-issued tokens.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kabaloev emphasized the need for Russia to build its own stablecoin infrastructure to maintain financial sovereignty and reduce external dependencies.

The comments reflect Russia’s broader efforts to circumvent Western sanctions through alternative financial channels, with stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) playing an essential role in that strategy

This pivot toward sovereign digital tools could reshape the country’s approach to crypto regulation in the years ahead.

Senate Proposal Adds Environmental Layer to Crypto Regulation

Meanwhile, environmental concerns surrounding cryptocurrency mining have prompted new legislative action in the U.S. Senate.

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and John Fetterman introduced the “Clean Cloud Act of 2025” last week, a bill aimed at reducing emissions from crypto mining and data center operations.

The proposed law would fine mining facilities that continue to use non-renewable energy sources beyond 2035.

Additionally, it requires facilities consuming more than 100 kilowatts of power to report energy usage, electricity sources, and emissions data annually.

“There is a lack of transparency regarding the energy sources used to power domestic crypto mining and many data center operations,” the draft legislation states.

If passed, the bill would alter the cost structures and operational models of crypto mining firms in the United States, pushing them toward cleaner energy sources or out of the country altogether.

Canada Leads with Solana ETFs

North of the border, Canada approved North America’s first spot Solana exchange‑traded funds (ETFs) that incorporate staking.

These ETFs will include staking capabilities, a feature that allows investors to earn rewards by locking up their tokens to support blockchain operations.

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) approved four issuers—Purpose Investments, Evolve ETFs, CI Financial, and 3iQ—to list Solana ETFs, with trading set to begin on April 16.

The funds will hold physical Solana (SOL) and offer staking, making them a rare blend of passive investment and yield-generating blockchain participation.

The decision may encourage additional crypto‑based investment products in traditional markets and reinforces Canada’s proactive stance on crypto oversight.

Crypto Regulation Tightens as Global Oversight Expands

The idea that crypto exists outside the system has become harder to defend. Canada’s ETF approvals reflect financial normalization.

The SEC’s custody talks show traditional regulators are no longer avoiding digital assets. And in Russia, token infrastructure is being treated as a matter of national security.

Crypto’s next chapter won’t be defined by innovation alone—it will depend on who sets the rules, how they’re enforced, and how global approaches to crypto regulation evolve from here.

The post Weekly Crypto Regulation News Roundup: SEC Sets Roundtable, Russia Eyes Stablecoins, and Canada Approves Solana ETFs appeared first on Cryptonews.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is announcing four more roundtable events in 2025 for its task force to discuss the digital assets industry.

According to a new press release, the regulatory agency plans to add four roundtable discussions about crypto assets and how they are regulated to its calendar of events.

The discussions, which will take place between April and June, will clarify the law regarding crypto custody, real-world asset tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Says Commissioner Hester M. Peirce, head of the Crypto Task Force,

“The Crypto Task Force roundtables are an opportunity for us to hear a lively discussion among experts about what the regulatory issues are and what the Commission can do to solve them.”

The SEC’s Crypto Task Force was launched earlier this year by Mark Uyeda, the agency’s Acting Chair. It brings together regulators, lawyers and crypto executives to discuss the appropriate courses of action in terms of regulating crypto assets.

Earlier this week, Peirce, a longtime proponent of digital assets, said that the Crypto Task Force will be a revamp of the SEC’s approach to regulating cryptocurrencies.

“The formation of the Crypto Task Force gave permission to staff in the building to work earnestly towards a workable framework for crypto regulation, and staff have responded with palpable enthusiasm…

People have been talking, thinking, and writing about the issues with which we are now wrestling. The roundtable series will allow us to explore the issues collaboratively.”

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) held its first crypto task force roundtable on March 21 to discuss regulation, which ended in a consensus that crypto needs regulatory clarity in the US despite diverging views among the panelists.

Panelists ranged from crypto advocates to skeptics and the session focused on longstanding debates, including the classification of digital assets and the limits of existing securities laws in addressing decentralized technologies.

Advocates defended decentralization as a gauge for determining whether a token is a security. At the same time, skeptics argued that the current definition by the Howey test works, as the SEC won more motions than lost.

The event marked a shift in tone from the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler, who frequently characterized most crypto tokens as securities and pursued enforcement actions against major firms.

Legal definitions and the scope of securities law

Discussions extended to what characteristics of digital assets, if any, justify different treatment under the law. Crypto advocates at the event suggested that beyond asking whether something is a security, the more relevant question may be whether certain securities merit exemptive relief. 

Proponents argued that one possible differentiator is the degree of control exerted by issuers, a concept that better captures the decentralized nature of many blockchain networks.

Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow at the Duke Financial Economics Center, said that all panelists agree that Bitcoin (BTC) is not a security because it is sufficiently decentralized. 

However, he added that drawing a line to define if something is sufficiently decentralized or an investment contract is impossible, citing a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) report that divides decentralization by spectrums based on different aspects.

Investor risk and statutory authority

Skeptics of the crypto industry presented contrasting perspectives. Former SEC enforcement official John Reed Stark and the most vocal critic maintained that the agency’s responsibility is to protect investors who purchase digital assets. 

Additionally, crypto critics argued that the Howey Test remains a sufficient legal standard and that the SEC’s track record of litigation success affirms its interpretive authority. Stark suggested that there is no need to reinvent the framework.

Despite these divisions, participants generally agreed that clearer definitions and regulatory consistency would benefit the industry and the SEC’s oversight responsibilities. 

The roundtable represents the first in a series of efforts to modernize the agency’s stance on crypto markets while balancing investor protection with technological innovation. It signals the beginning of the regulator’s reassessment process.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The staff at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has embraced the chance to finally work with the crypto industry to hash out policy for overseeing digital assets transactions, said Commissioner Hester Peirce, the head of the agency’s crypto task force.

The securities regulator is ready “to seek earnestly to find a workable framework,” Peirce said at the agency’s first crypto-focused roundtable on Friday. “I think we’re ready for the spring ahead,” she said, referring to the title of the day’s event, the “Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity.”

The task, according to Peirce: “Can we translate the characteristics of a security into a simple taxonomy that will cover the many different types of crypto assets that exist today and may exist in the future?”

Mark Uyeda, the agency’s acting chairman, told reporters that despite recent SEC policy statements that certain areas of the crypto sector aren’t subject to securities laws — memecoins and mining, so far — it’s a “definitely possibility” that others will be defined as securities.

“We’re moving on multiple tracks here,” he said in answer to a question from CoinDesk. Each statement issued so far “ultimately is a staff statement” that doesn’t have legal backing, but he said the roundtable represents the entire commission — currently three members — looking at what a “potential commission interpretation might look like.”

In his opening remarks at the event, Uyeda, who was appointed by President Donald Trump as the SEC awaits a Senate confirmation of Paul Atkins, argued that the agency should have been more willing in recent years to make such interpretations public.

“When judicial opinions have created uncertainty from our participants in the past, the commission and its staff have stepped in to provide guidance,” Uyeda said. “This approach of using common rulemaking for explaining the commission’s process or releases rather than enforcement actions, should have been considered for classifying crypto assets under the federal security laws.”

Panel discussion

The panel discussion saw a dozen securities attorneys in the crypto sector weigh in on the specific issues they saw as they advised companies.

“What’s the biggest question that you face in trying to wrestle with this question?,” moderator Troy Paredes, a former SEC commissioner who now runs consulting firm Paredes Strategies, asked Sarah Brennan, the general counsel at Delphi Ventures and one of the 11 panelists.

“The specter of the application of securities laws has moved early-stage projects in the market to sort of take an arc very similar to [initial public offerings], where they stay private longer,” she replied.

“These assets in the traditional model are designed to have wide, broad early distribution and most of the market is hedging that on the application of securities laws, so it ends up looking a lot like your traditional markets where people will marshal their way to an exchange listing without that broad dissemination or price support or actually fully launching the technology.”

The panel featured critics of the industry alongside attorneys who have worked to develop the sector.

“Whether you’re talking yield farms or ostrich farms or orange groves, the whole point of securities regulation was to wrap that all up into a very big, broad, principles-based regulation,” former SEC attorney John Reed Stark said. His concern is that, even in 2025, much of the market lacks utility.

“If it all went away tomorrow and you weren’t speculating in it, you wouldn’t care,” he said.

Legislator questions

Ahead of the roundtable, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jake Auchincloss, both Massachusetts Democrats, wrote an open letter to Uyeda asking about the SEC’s staff statement on memecoins and how it was developed.

The letter asked whether anyone at the SEC communicated with the White House about the statement, whether the White House’s crypto working group had directed the SEC to do anything and why the staff statement was not built into formal rulemaking.

Warren and Auchincloss also asked the SEC to explain how it would specifically define memecoins as distinct from “general cryptocurrency,” how it would distinguish between actual memecoins and memecoins that don’t meet the staff statement, and which memecoins the SEC analyzed in drafting its staff statement.