The number of companies listed on US exchanges has dropped from roughly 7,800 to about 4,700 over the past 28 years. America’s public markets have been slowly shrinking for nearly three decades, and the SEC’s new chairman thinks he knows how to fix it.

Paul Atkins, who officially took the reins at the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, is pushing an agenda that sounds like it was cooked up at the intersection of Wall Street and Web3. The goal: make it easier to be a public company, get more Americans investing in public markets, and, quietly, let blockchain technology do some of the heavy lifting.

Make IPOs great again

Atkins’ flagship initiative is literally called “Make IPOs Great Again,” and it rests on three pillars. First, modernizing and streamlining disclosure requirements. The idea here is that compliance costs have become so bloated that smaller companies simply can’t justify going public. Second, reforming reporting frameworks. Third, exploring alternative litigation processes while keeping shareholder protections intact.

Where crypto enters the picture

Atkins previously served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002 to 2008. He’s publicly stated that most digital tokens do not qualify as securities, and believes tokenization could fundamentally reshape the financial system within a few years.

The practical implications are already materializing. Superstate, a blockchain-based platform, launched a service in December 2025 that allows SEC-registered companies to issue shares directly on Ethereum and Solana in exchange for stablecoins.

From enforcement to enablement

Under previous leadership, the SEC’s relationship with the crypto industry was characterized by “regulation by enforcement,” where companies would launch products, get sued, and then learn what the rules were supposed to be. Atkins is signaling a deliberate pivot away from that model, with the new emphasis on capital formation.

What investors should actually watch

Streamlining disclosure requirements could create information asymmetry that lighter disclosure enables. The litigation reform pillar is particularly consequential: securities class actions serve as a deterrent against fraud, and if alternative dispute resolution mechanisms don’t carry the same teeth, the incentive structure for corporate misbehavior shifts. For crypto-native investors, the Superstate model is the one to watch most closely, as on-chain share issuance for SEC-registered companies could create an asset class sitting at the intersection of equities and DeFi.