President-Elect Donald Trump nominated a crypto-friendly former SEC commissioner to lead America’s top financial watchdog on Wednesday.

Paul Atkins, currently the CEO at Patomak Global Partners, was tapped to replace the Bitcoin-bashing Gary Gensler as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations. He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of investors,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump said said the veteran regulator “recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.”

The nomination comes after the two met at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, where they were joined with Vice President-elect JD Vance and Trump advisor Vivek Ramaswamy, according to Fox Business.

If confirmed by the Senate, he would return to the agency that he last worked for as an SEC commissioner under George W. Bush between 2002 and 2008.

“This is a strong, forward-leaning pick,” said Ji Kim at the Crypto Council for Innovation, who added the Bush alum would foster “responsible innovation” in the sector.

Gensler has been at the heart of the Biden administration’s efforts to clamp down on the $3.5 trillion cryptocurrency market.

The 67-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker trashed the industry in September when he claimed it was “rife with fraud and hucksters and grifters.”

Under his tenure, he handed billions of dollars in fines and pursued crypto companies for fraud and money laundering.

A source close to the Trump transition team accused Gensler of presiding over “a turf war” to crack down on crypto with rival regulator Commodity Futures Trading Commission that created uncertainty for investors.

On the campaign trail, Trump had vowed to fire him on ‘day one’ of his new administration.

The nomination of Atkins, who is well-connected in Republican political circles, complete a crypto U-turn for Trump, who once referred to Bitcoin as a ‘scam.”

Investors clearly believe that Trump will bring in a lighter touch approach to regulation, with Bitcoin soaring by more than 65% since his Nov. 5 election victory.

The token was up nearly 3% Wednesday, hovering near the $100,000 threshold at $98,623.

Atkins also has been a vocal critic of financial regulations such as Dodd-Frank that emerged from the 2008 financial crisis.

The long-time lobbyist and policymaker has also hit out at so-called woke capitalism that forces companies to focus on climate change and workplace diversity.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said that Atkins “has the experience necessary to lead the agency out of Gary Gensler’s disastrous tenure.” 

Scott, a one-time presidential challenger to Trump, said his potential appointment would “help revitalize the U.S. capital markets system — which is critical to our economic growth, job creation, and innovation.”