Summary

Atkins wants to restore the IPO as a financing round rather than an insider liquidity event. The U.S. has roughly half as many public companies as 30 years ago, leaving more of the upside with private-equity, venture, employee and corporate-insider holders before mature companies list. His remedy is a regulatory “spring cleaning,” greater focus on material disclosures, less class-action and vexatious litigation, and less weaponized shareholder governance—to “make IPOs great again.”
The SEC plans to reconsider both quarterly reporting and wealth-based accreditation. Reporting was annual when the SEC was formed in 1934, semiannual from 1955 and quarterly from 1970; Atkins is personally agnostic and wants comment on whether smaller issuers benefit from a slower cadence. He also favors exploring a knowledge test—a driver’s-license-like qualification, CPA, CFA or simpler Series 7 equivalent—because a finance professor can be barred while an inexperienced $10 million heiress qualifies. Jason framed the stakes by saying venture-backed companies account for 20% of GDP and 40% of the S&P.
Selig’s CFTC agenda replaces “regulation by enforcement” with purpose-fit rules for crypto, prediction markets and AI. If pending crypto legislation passes, the agency expects spot-market authority; Selig said he is working with David Sacks to advance it. Regardless, the CFTC is preparing rules for blockchain networks, smart contracts and on-chain systems. Atkins and Selig are also pursuing an interagency memorandum, substituted compliance and, as Atkins’s longer-term aspiration, a “super-app approach” spanning securities and commodities.
Tokenization could deliver T+0 settlement, but autonomous trading agents create risks regulators have rarely seen. Chamath described agent-based hedge funds effectively replacing Citadel or Millennium and asked, “Where’s the kill switch?” Selig’s answer was “go build, don’t ask us for permission,” paired with blockchain nodes, code-literate regulators and guardrails; Atkins added that 24/7 markets may need speed bumps and require regulators to rethink liquidity and best bid and offer.
Prediction-market contracts are regulated derivatives, not simply casino bets, and their information value does not excuse insider trading or manipulable contracts. Selig called markets “truth machines,” but said exchanges must certify that contracts are not readily susceptible to manipulation, with the CFTC able to reject contracts or punish misconduct. The practical boundary runs through examples such as a Super Bowl streaker, Gatorade color and a MrBeast employee trading on unreleased video information.
Leverage and derivatives transparency will be calibrated market by market, with simplification rather than wholesale deregulation. Existing exchange margin powers, broker and bank controls, swap repositories and daily reporting provide visibility, but Selig said crypto swaps should not require costly lawyers to classify them against cattle or wheat. His standard for inherited rules is the “minimum effective dose.”
Both chairs see the central tradeoff as bringing innovation home without sacrificing market integrity. Selig does not want blockchain, AI or prediction-market builders fleeing to the Cayman Islands, Bahamas or Russia, but equally rejects another FTX; Atkins cited CFTC-supervised LedgerX, whose segregated accounts meant no customers lost money through that platform. Their closing concern was avoiding a regulatory “Maginot Line” while educating younger traders. Jason then cited figures claiming that 45% of men aged 18–30 report a wagering or gambling problem, 10% meet addiction criteria and one-third have placed a bet.

Deep dive

1. The IPO stopped financing growth and became an insider exit

Atkins’s historical contrast: Apple, Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices went public young because public capital funded R&D and growth. Insiders held a relatively thin slice, while IPO buyers captured “the lion’s share” of the long-term return.
Today, Atkins said, the country has roughly half as many public companies as 30 years ago, and robust private markets retain companies until maturity. Chamath’s framing: an IPO once resembled a Series C or D for a four- or five-year-old company; now it principally supplies liquidity.
Atkins identified three recurring deterrents: costly disclosures drifting away from materiality, class actions after every stock dip, and shareholder-proposal activism that weaponizes governance. His 2026 program is a “spring cleaning”—to “clean out the attic, the basement and the garage”—while examining arbitration and fee shifting, both of which he said Delaware recently outlawed for public companies.

2. Reporting cadence and accreditation are both headed for review

Quarterly reporting is newer than its defenders imply. When the SEC was formed in 1934, it codified an annual-report regime; reporting moved to semiannual in 1955 and quarterly in 1970. The UK later returned to semiannual reporting around 2014 while permitting companies to report more often.
Atkins is “a bit agnostic” and plans a proposed rule seeking comment. Smaller issuers might save money with semiannual reports, but they may need quarterly numbers to attract scarce analyst coverage; Barry Diller’s opposite answer was to publish accounting numbers monthly and abandon quarterly forecasting gamesmanship.
On accreditation, Atkins said the governing conception includes knowledge, not merely assets. He wants to explore a test, CPA or CFA recognition, or a simpler Series 7-like route: “Why does a finance professor” earning $100,000 fail while an inexperienced heiress receiving $10 million qualifies?
Jason argued that venture-backed companies account for 20% of U.S. GDP and 40% of the S&P, making fund formation a major capital-formation issue.
Jason supplied the venture-fund consequence: more than $100 million of accredited demand for his last fund, but a 100-investor constraint meant he could accept only $10 million. Atkins said many limits are statutory, though exemptions and coordination with the Department of Labor and Treasury over 401(k)s may broaden access with guardrails. Selig supported broader access and argued that ICOs showed the market seeks alternatives when people are excluded.

3. The CFTC is replacing enforcement-first policy with purpose-fit rules

Selig traced his agenda to 2021–22, when private-practice clients received subpoenas “every week” and crypto, prediction-market, AI and traditional-finance businesses faced an “onslaught of regulation by enforcement.” He entered government to “right the ship.”
If pending crypto legislation crosses the finish line, Selig said the CFTC would have authority over spot markets, and the agency is preparing implementation with David Sacks. Even without legislation, he wants future-proof rules for blockchain networks, on-chain software, digital assets and AI rather than forcing new businesses into frameworks built for different products.
Atkins argued that U.S. markets retain a global advantage through rule of law, enforceable contracts and an equity-investment culture largely absent in Europe and Japan. More flexible regulation, expanded investor access and permission to build new products onshore could “turbocharge” capital formation.

4. T+0 settlement meets the unresolved risk of autonomous finance

Chamath described automated, agent-based hedge funds operating across markets around the clock—projects that can effectively replace Citadel or Millennium. He found them democratic and compelling, but posed the systemic question directly: “Where’s the kill switch? Or where’s the circuit breaker?”
Selig’s operating posture is “go build, don’t ask us for permission,” followed by study and guardrails rather than preemptive prohibition. Possible supervisory tools include operating blockchain nodes and employing technologists who can inspect smart contracts and code.
Atkins sees distributed ledgers bringing markets to T+0: immediate delivery-versus-payment and receipt-versus-payment on-chain. Yet 24/7 trading may require fraud-prevention speed bumps and answers about liquidity and what “best bid and offer” means when markets never close.
On leverage, Atkins rejected one universal number. Banks, broker-dealers, futures exchanges and securities markets already use different margin and control regimes; regulators must identify analogues for new markets, preserve trading and still avoid allowing risks “to blow up in our face.”

5. The SEC and CFTC are trying to eliminate regulatory no-man’s-land

Atkins compared the agencies to “two fortresses with a no man’s land in between,” littered with products killed by jurisdictional crossfire. Single-stock futures and portfolio margining were his examples of potentially useful structures impeded by interagency friction.
The chairs are developing a memorandum of understanding for information sharing, staff coordination and clearer product and registration treatment. Selig favors substituted compliance: one primary regulator, with coordinated treatment when prediction contracts, protocols or smart contracts span securities and commodities.
Separate blockchains for securities and commodities, Selig argued, would be unworkable if there were “nothing in between.” Atkins’s goal for the next few years is a “super-app approach” that uses the SEC’s exemptive flexibility to reduce friction for dually registered firms even though the governing statutes remain distinct.
Each chair also wants a tool from the other’s rulebook. Atkins admires CFTC self-certification for repetitive products once a framework is approved; Selig wants the SEC’s alternative trading system model, an “exchange-light framework” allowing broker-dealers to operate venues without full exchange registration.

6. Prediction markets are truth machines only when contracts resist manipulation

Chamath framed the conflict through Reg FD: public markets assume material information should reach everyone, while some prediction markets become accurate precisely because participants possess differentiated—or secret—information. Brian Armstrong’s observation, as Chamath relayed it, was that certain markets “only thrive on insider information.”
Selig replied that prediction markets date to the Iowa political market in the 1990s. Exchanges, as self-regulatory organizations and the first line of defense, must certify that each derivative is fungible, standardized and not readily susceptible to insider trading, manipulation or fraud; the CFTC can reject contracts or police misconduct afterward.
The examples expose the boundary. A team insider may know the Super Bowl Gatorade color; a bettor could manufacture a winning “streaker” outcome; even wording about whether a dictator is executed or merely deposed affects manipulability. These are not simply bets “with a bookie in a casino.”
Selig noted that Kalshi recently brought two enforcement actions against participants, one involving a MrBeast employee who traded using information about when a YouTube video would launch or what it would contain. Commodity insider trading is policed alongside securities misconduct.
Selig also said the prior administration tried to ban these markets ahead of the 2024 election; in his account, they increased turnout and proved more accurate than fake polls. He defended regulated prediction markets as “truth machines,” while emphasizing that insider trading remains illegal.

7. A token’s sale and the token itself require separate classification

Jason’s challenge was that meme coins such as $TRUMP and $DOGE, along with NFTs and utility tokens, have tickers, charts and stock-like trading, leaving retail buyers treating them “like a duck” even when securities protections do not apply. Gensler’s conceptual concern may have been logical, Jason suggested, even if execution failed.
Atkins put the failure in vague definitions: cautious lawyers sent projects offshore while others offered “happy talk” before SEC enforcement arrived. A tokenized security remains subject to securities law; digital commodities, tools or collectibles may fall under CFTC oversight—or potentially neither agency—but fraud still requires a credible “cop on the beat.”
Selig separated promises used to raise business capital from the object later traded. Ethereum- or Solana-like network inputs may be digital commodities, while NFTs can be collectibles and tokens can execute commands. Prior securities cases involved fundraising with chinchillas or whiskey barrels, but Selig said those goods were not thereby traded as securities in the digital-asset markets.

8. Derivatives plumbing must simplify without reopening systemic blind spots

Selig divided futures participants into hedgers, speculators and market makers, all contributing liquidity. Exchanges and the CFTC surveil wash trading, manipulation and other suspect activity, request trader information and police market integrity when activity raises concerns.
Post-Dodd-Frank swap repositories now receive most bilateral over-the-counter swap data daily, making exposures far less opaque. The problem is usability: excessive fields forced firms to pay lawyers to map Bitcoin and crypto swaps against categories designed for cattle and wheat. Selig wants every rule reduced to the “minimum effective dose.”
Both chairs’ final risk was getting the balance wrong. Selig wants builders back from the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and Russia without permitting another FTX; Atkins noted that CFTC-supervised LedgerX survived FTX because accounts were segregated and no customers lost money through that platform. He then warned regulators against “fighting always the last battle” by constructing another Maginot Line.
Jason closed with wagering’s second-order cost, citing figures that 45% of men aged 18–30 report a problem with wagering or gambling, 10% meet addiction criteria and one-third have placed a bet. Selig emphasized platform education and suitability controls; Atkins added parents and schools, while Jason cited Robinhood’s required instructional wizard for complex trades as a practical model.

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