Odaily Planet Daily reports: On March 12 in the U.S., SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, while appearing on the All-In Podcast, stated that, from his perspective, distributed ledger technology (DLT) offers numerous potential advantages to the financial services industry. The industry is currently at a critical stage where T+0 settlement—enabling nearly real-time delivery and payment—is within reach, potentially even allowing payments to be made directly via on-chain digital assets. He described this prospect as “very exciting,” but noted that some “braking mechanisms” may still be necessary within the system to mitigate risks such as fraud.
However, he also noted that this model still faces challenges, such as liquidity issues. How the concept of "best bid and ask" in traditional markets should be reflected under this new trading architecture remains one of the key issues to be addressed.
Atkins emphasized that the SEC’s fundamental principle is that if an asset is inherently a security, its legal status remains that of a security even if it is tokenized, and it must still comply with federal securities laws. At the same time, regulators have a responsibility to ensure that existing rules can adapt to new use cases. As the purposes of trading and settlement methods evolve, the regulatory framework must also adapt accordingly.
He stated that the SEC is currently reviewing existing regulatory rules on a case-by-case basis to assess their suitability for the emerging technological landscape and to update them at the institutional level when necessary.