Today in crypto, The US Senate confirmed Paul Atkins as SEC chair, Donald Trump paused his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, except on China, and Argentina lawmakers approved a probe into President Javier Milei's promotion of the LIBRA memecoin.
US Senate confirms Paul Atkins to lead Trump’s SEC
The US Senate on April 9 confirmed US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Paul Atkins, as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission in a 52-44 vote largely along party lines.
Trump named the pro-crypto former Wall Street consultant to lead the agency late last year, who was also an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008.
Atkins founded the financial consulting firm Patomak Global Partners after he left the SEC in 2009 and served as co-chair of the crypto advocacy group Token Alliance between 2017 and late 2024.
After he’s sworn in, Atkins will follow on from former chair Gary Gensler, whose tenure saw the agency launch multiple lawsuits and investigations against crypto firms over alleged breaches of securities laws.
Atkins is expected to take a different approach. He said at a Senate confirmation hearing in March that a top priority of his time at the SEC would be “to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets through a rational, coherent, and principled approach.”
Trump pauses some tariffs, boosts China's
United States President Donald Trump issued a 90-day pause on "reciprocal tariffs" and lowered the tariff rate to 10% on countries that do not retaliate with counter-tariffs.
The president also said he would increase the reciprocal tariff rate on China to 125% due to the country's counter-tariffs against the US. Trump wrote in an April 9 Truth Social post:
"At some point, hopefully, in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the USA, and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable."
According to data from TradingView, the S&P 500 index rallied close to 7% following the announcement, showcasing the high volatility of capital markets amid the macroeconomic uncertainty and the potential for a protracted trade conflict.
Source: Donald Trump
Argentine lawmakers back Milei probe in Libra crypto scandal
Lawmakers in Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies backed an investigation into President Javier Milei’s alleged involvement in the Libra (LIBRA) cryptocurrency scandal.
According to an April 8 report by local news outlet Buenos Aires Times, deputies in the lower house voted 128 to 93 in favor, with seven abstentions. The same proposal previously failed to move forward in the Senate.
The news follows Milei promoting the LIBRA memecoin on social media. With the Argentine president leveraging his credibility as a government official and his 3.8 million followers, the token quickly reached $5, briefly touching a market cap of $4 billion.
Milei has since faced accusations of wrongdoing, with critics claiming that LIBRA was a rug-pull scam and that he lured investors in. Lawyer Jonatan Baldiviezo, alongside Marcos Zelaya, engineer María Eva Koutsovitis and economist Claudio Lozano, a former head of Argentina’s central bank, filed a lawsuit against Milei, accusing him of fraud.
According to Baldiviezo, Milei’s promotion was instrumental in an “illicit association” with the promoters of the cryptocurrency. The non-governmental organization Observatorio del Derecho a la Ciudad shared the concerns and filed a case that accused the president of promoting a scheme that reportedly resulted in over 40,000 investors losing more than $4 billion.