A sweeping policy initiative announced by Wall Street’s top regulator on Thursday was cheered by crypto-industry participants, who hailed what they said was its potential to not only rewrite the rule book for digital assets but to also transform financial markets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday debuted "Project Crypto," a plan to modernize securities regulations to allow crypto-based trading.

A year ago, one of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s primary targets was the crypto industry, which the agency said in myriad lawsuits was widely flouting securities laws. Now, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins says the agency is going to do everything in its power to make the U.S. the most attractive country to digital-asset firms in the world.