SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on the New Crypto Task Force

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, The Newly Named Head of the Regulator’s Crypto Task Force, Has Long Been A Proport of the Crypto Industry As One Republicans Orierseing. She Discussed Her Approach with Coindesk in Late February.

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‘Right the Ship’The NarrativeSEC Commissioner Hester Peirce Spoke with Coindesk on Feb. 28, 2025, Hours Before US President Donald Trump AnnunCed His White House Crypto Summit.

WHY IT MATTERSThe US Securities and Exchange Commission Is One of the Key Regulators Overseeing the Crypto Sector in the Country, and Has Been the Source of Much Ire. PEIRCE, WHO HAS Served As A Commissioner Since 2018, is Now Looking to Change the Regulator’s Approach to the Entire Industry. As part of this, the Sec is hosting an evult on Crypto Policy on March 21.

Breaking It DownJust to get right in, Obviously, It’s Been, I Think, An EventFul Five Weeks Now, Give or Take, Since President Donald Trump Took The Oath of Office and Resailed His President. The big thing in your World is the New Crypto Task Force that you’re heading up, as far as the Crypto Industry is concerned. And just to begin with, i was hoping you could maybe walk through what you’ve see and done and heard so far, and that whohre you expert this to go.

Yeah, Let Me Start by Giving You My Standard Disclaimer, WHICH IS THAT MY Views Are My Own Views As A Commissioner, Not Necessarily Those of the Sec of My Fellow Commissioners. SO I THINK IT HAS BEEN AXCITING FIVE WEEKS, AND I THINK IT WAS GREAT THAT CHAIRMAN [Mark] Uyeda Kicked Off The Task Force, and Decides to Give Us The Ability to Think About A Lot of these Issues in a Holistic Way. And so that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. I Think We Have Been ABLE TO GET A LOT DONE ALREADY, WHICH I’M HAPPY About. IT’s A Great Team, A LOT OF REALLY SMART PEOPLE WHO ARE WORKING VERY HARD. And so i think the goal is to try to think about what we can just carve out and say to people, “this isn’ ‘in our jurisdiction.” Congress, if You Want To Put It In Our Jurisdification, That’s Fine, But It’s Not There.

D The Stuff that’s in Our Jurisdification, What Can We Do in the Short Term to Provide Some Clarity or A Path Forward For People That’s Within Our Space. SO Let’s Provide Some Clear Roads Forward.

Those Might Be Tempoury, Just bridging the Gap Until There’s Legislation or Regulation, and THEN TRYING TO GRAPPLE COMPLE for a broker or a trading platform that’s trying to have securities alongside non-Securities. Some of Those More Dificult Issues Will Take Some Time to Grapple with, and We’re Trying to Do All of It Way That Involves The Public. We Want People To Be Able to Come In and Talk to Us. We Want to Get Their Suggets for How to Move Forward and and and and Really Get The Best Ideas and Put Those in Place

Can You Speak A Bit To What You’re Hearing, What Kind of Feedback You Might Have Gotten Already?

We’ve Talked to People, and Some People Have Started to Respond. I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO THRUGH A LOT OF RESPONSES YET, BUT I THINK PEOPLE Are Engaging Seriously with What We’ve Asked – The Big List of Questions Was About 50 Questions. What We’ve Asked People Is Just Respond to What [you can]. You Can Respond to Everything If You Want, But You Definitely Shouldn’T Feel You Have To Respond To Everhting. And so i though we’re going to get some really thoroughful, Very Targeted Responses.

Some people had had already, not surprise, right? They’d already been Thinking about how to goont. SO we’ve already Gotten Some Comprehensive Documents that Sort of Suggest How to Move Forward in General. D Some of Those Are [responses] People have put out of publicly. They have’t prepared them special for us, but we’re look at Those Kinds of Things Toot, and We’re Trying to Figure Out, How Do We Find the Best Ideas And An.

Are there any areas in Particular that Congress, in your View, You Know, Must Address? Is it memecoins, is it someting else, anything the Sec, or Even the Sec Working with the CFTC, Canow, on Their Own, Create a ru, or Guidance for?

Well, I Think They Looking at Stablecoin Legislation, WHICH I THINK IS AREA THAT DEFINITELY CONGRESS HAS A ROLE TO PLAY, AND CONGRESS ALWAYS HAS A ROLE TO PLAY, RIGTT? But I Think That Market Structure Bills and The Bills That Are Trying To Put Some Clarity AUND WHAT SHOULD BE IN OUR JURISDICTION, WHAT MIGHT BE IN THE CFTC’S JURISDICATION INSTEAD. SO A LOT OF WHAT IS EXCITING About this Technology is it Allows for Decentralization, and I Think That’s What Draws A Lot of People to It. But as with most Things, You See that People Do Sort of Gravitate Towards Centralized Entities. And so that wound be someting that i THINK we all not to pay at, Because whohn you have centralized entities, you have the Kinds of Conceerns that Led.

You have Risk of Loss, Risk of Bad Conduct by that Centralized Party, Risk that the Centralized Party Will Treat Somers Differently Than Oths, TESE Kinds of Things. And so if you have trading Platforms or of the Centralized Intermediarians that are interacting with things that are not securities, there is not Necessarily a regulatory. If that’s the caase, then congress may do that that’s something that’s what they want to come in and writer a framework for. And items that do, because the bills that are out there. So i expect that we’ll see a Lot more activity on that front this year in congress.

Former CFTC Chair Timothy Massad SAID IN CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, I WANT TO SAY IT WAS TWO OR DAY DAYS AGO THAT HE DOES NOT THINK CONGRICS In your View, do you agree with that?

I Didn’T See Chairman Massad’s Commentary… I Unfortunately HAVEN’S HAD A CHANCE TO WATCH THAT YET, SO I DIDN’T See his Commentary. But Again, I Think That Is Good To Have A Conversation ARUND WEERE We NEED LEGISION AND WHAT WE CAN DO WITH OUR EXISTING RULES. He ‘Was Chairman of the CFTC, SO HAS A GOOD SENSE OF WHAT AUTHORITY WHO ALRIREADY HAVE.

Do you have Maybe a Special Timeline in mind for who the Sec Could, Through The Work in the Task Force, Start Issuing More Concrete Guidance? I SAW The STAFF STATEMENT YESTERDAY, But Anything More Formal?

Well, Fast Is My Goal. But as i said in the first statement i put out, People Need to be Patient Too, Because We Want to Get This. We Want It. We Want to Do this Well Also. So i THINK WE’ll Just Put Stuff Out Piecemeal As It’s Ready to Go Out, WHICH IS WHY YOU SAW The MEMECOIN STATEMENT GO OUT. And I Should Emphasize that Task Force Is A Great Group of People. We’ve Got Really Smart People There, But We Are Working with People Across The Sec. And so you’ll see pieces coming out from figrenty parts of the Sec. And you saw Yesterday that the Division of Corporation Finance Put Out That Statement On Meme Coins.

SO Switching Tack Just A Little Bit for a Minute Here, Yesterday, We Also Saw The Sec File Jointly with Coinbase to WitHDraw of the Ongoing Case Alleging Just, I Think Itk ITK. I KNOW YOU PROBABLY SPEAK to Any SPECIFIC CASE, But Could You Speak A Little Bit to Kind of the Division of Enforcement More Broadly, and What We Might Expect, Especialy.

Yeah, I MEAN, I DON’T KNOW THAT I CAN SPEAK TO WHAT YOU MIGHT EXPECT, Exocpt to Say That. And I Think Yesterday’s Action Really Examplifies This. We don’t want to use Our Enforcement Division to Write Regulatory Policy, and SO We’re Really Trying to Get Back to Using Our Enforcement Digenion for ITSTING ALULATION. The Hard Work of Figing Out How to Craft Rules, Guidance, Interpretations, and Ten Enforcement Has A Rule After that, of Course, To Enforce the Rules that Are Are. But this has just been an area whoa we’ve kind of goote about Backwards, and We’re Trying to Right the Ship Here.

In Kind of the Same Vein, Obvioously The Sec Filed to Pause Some of the Cases Against Some of the Companies Thaty’ve Been Litigating Against. Some of Those Cases Included Fraud or Related Allegations. Do you expert the best pause to just kind of focus on just the pure registration/securities aspect of it, and then [they] might resume from there, or just any thoughs you might have on [that]?

We’ll Assess every Case on Its Facts and Circumstans and Figure Out How to Move Forward. It’s Always the Goal To Make Sure that the Policy is not Being Driven by the Enforcement, But Enforcement Follows WHERE Policy is. There is Certainly a role for Enforcement, and there is a role for enforcement in some things released to crypto and we always had to ask the quest, is there ackur.

But if people are committing fraud and they’re THINKING THAT THIS IS A FREE PASS TO Commit Fraud, that’s Just Not the Case. If we find a fraud and we don’t have authority to go after it, that’s someting that we will look to find someone else who have a mayor in that, and Send it. SO I THINK This is Really About Using Our Resources Most Effectvely, and that Means that We Can Really Save Our Enforcement Resources for WHERE THERE.

So i should probably phrase this carefully, because again, i KNOW YOU PROBABLY CAN’T SPEAK to Any SPECIFIC CASES, BUT A BIG ONE TIZEK Fraud and Market Manipulation. Is it missible that’s something kinding that you’re saying, maybe, the doj or Another Body Might Have Kind of that Greater Authority, or The More Relevant Authority that speakeing of?

I Can’T Speak About Individual Cases, and We Really Do Have To Look at Each Case On Its Facts and Circumstans. And there, there are a Lot of caases that we have to look at. And so that’s what we’re doing.

Switching Gears Again. SO paul atkins have been nominated to be the chair. Have you had a chance to speak with him about the Last Couple Weeks?

Well, Chairman Atkins is Focused, I Think, On Getting His Hearing Before The Senate and Ten Getting Confirmed. I Think He’ll Have Plenty of Time to Engage With Us, With The Task Force, With Me, Onse Issues and more, but I’M Trying to let Him gettrough This Part of the Process. I KNOW, HAVING BEEN THROUGH IT MYSELF, I KNOW THAT IT DAKS A LOT OF PREPARATION, AND THERE Are A Lot of Other Demands on His Time Right Now.

Do you have any Kind of Expert, Just Directionally Speaking, What He Might Do With Regard to Crypto and some of the TESE Other Issues that you do you look in.

WELL, I DID WORK COMMISSIONER ATKINS. I Worked for Him for Four Years, So I Do Know How How Hinks About Isssues, and He Definitely Is Someone Who Likes The Law to Be Clear And Ten Enfoorce. The Goal Is To Get The Law Clear and Ten Enforce It After It’s Clear. So i suspect that somes of the Approaches that we’re Taking Will Resonate with Him and Also aso asoeone Who is Committed to Due Process Input from the People Who Will Be Affected. I Think, Again, Some of the ProCedural Decisions We’ve Made About Trying to Get A Lot of Input From The Outside, I Suspect That’s Something Will Resonate Will Him. THEN WE’ll See When It Comes Down to What The Individual, What Does A Good Disclosure Regime Look Like in this Space. … Can we have some sort of safe Harbor Type of Framework? Those are things that we’ll crtainly talk with him about whoh gets here.

I Want to come back to the safe Harbor aspect in a bit. But Just One More Question About Chairman Atkins. Before he was nominated, this was was, I Think, In February 2023, HE GAV An INTER View WHERE HE SUGGERED THAT The Ripple Case Wuld be a good Candidate to go up to the Supreme Court, Because It Cold Give A Follow Up on the Howey Case. Just in your View, does that make Sense? Is that something you would look forward to?

Well, Again, I’M Not Going to Speak Any Particular Case. The Howey Test Has Been AROUND FOR A Long Time. IT’s A Supreme Court Case, and It Is Designed to Interpret Investment Contracts, WHICH IS One Element of the Definition of Security, and IT has applied in a lot. By it Nature, i going to push in a lot of digferent types of things. SO Howey, of Course, Everyone Knows Was About Orange Groves. Now It’s Been Applied Very, Very Broadly in the Crypto World. I THAT HOWEY HAS HAS BEEN INTERPRErated, Maybe Too Broadly, and in Instances, I Think There Are Some Areas of Ambiguity That The Supreme Court Court Court. So if they are to take that that case, i will certainly watch that casse, mening a casse Related to Howey, Regardless of Who The Parties Are, I Will Definitely Watch. Howey Test.

On the safe Harbor Front, I Forget WHEN EXACTLY IT WAS THAT YOU FRIRST INTRODUCED THE IDEA OF A SAFE Harbor for the Industry,

A long time ago, yeah.

WHERE Are you now on that?

I Still Think We Should Do Some Kind of Safe Harbor. I THINK IT WOURT HAVE BEEN HELPFUL IF WE HAD DONE THAT BEFORE. Because the Sad Thing About This, The Way that We’ve Done Things, Is that It’s Actually Disincentivized, If That’s A Word, It’s Discourorated People from Making Disclos. And so i just want to get to a place where we have an actuly encouroge disClosure and we recard good disclosure, and i though that that’s what a regime like. I’m not wedded to it. I Think If People have Better Ideas, Please Send Them in, Tell Us Whaty Are. But My Goal Is To A World Where People Actual Want to Make DiscloSures, and They’re Not Fearing That IF They Make These Disclosures, It’s Going To Make Theater. Now, of Course, If You Make DiscaloSures and You Lie, I Mean, Yes, Tht’s Fair Enforcement Game.

Do you have any kind of plans Right Now to either reintDroduce this as a formal proposal, or just trying to get a momentum back on this front?

Well, I Think, As You Saw From The Questions That We Put Out, It’s Definitely Something We’re Thinking About and Want Feedback on. I Heard from A Lot of People at The Time That I Put It Out Thaty Thought It Wuld Be Helpful To Have Something Like This. People Didn’t Love Every Aspect of It. I THINK YOU SAW POPLE ITERING ON IT. And so again, what the details are is up for Debate, But It’s Something That We We Certainly Want People To Provide their Thought

I Want to get your reaction to something that was posted online recently. Cameron Winklevoss, The CO-FOUNDER OF CRYPTO Exchange Gemini, Posted A Letter Saying It Was from the Sec, Saying that Were Going to Close The Investigation Into. But in that same post, he dmanded restituration for the Legal Fees that incurred, and asked for the Litigators and Investigators Working on the Case to Be, and Forget It, IF Jas Fired Was Fred, IFLIC. I’m just curoures if you have any kind of reaction to that kind of a public call.

Well, for One Thing, I Certainly Understand. I’ve been very frustrated about how’s we’ve approached crypto here at the Sec Over The Past Several Years, and It Has Real World ConsequenCes. I get that, and it’s frustration for me sitting. I KNOW IS UNBELIEVABLY more FRUSTRATING FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY Bearing the Costs Directly, and I’ve Had Conversations with Those People, and It’s Very Different. But I Think One Thing’s Really Important to Underscore Is That Decisions About How to Proceed, WHETER WE’RE GOING to Use Our Enforcement Tool, Whther Wehr, Weing To. at the Commission Level, and So The Buck Does Stop at the Commission. WHEN WE MAKE BAD Decisions, The blame Lies on Us. IT doesn’t lie on the staff who are directed to… they report to the chairman. They Supped to Follow the Policy Direction that’re Getting from the Commission. They’re Supped to Execute that as Effectiely as they can.

We have a very good, Hard Working, Dedicated Staff at the Commission, and They Seek to Try to Carry Out The Directives That Getting. And so i Really Think Is So Important for People To To Understand that Responsibility for Decision-Making, Who, Who The Decisions Are Bad, Who The Policy Direction Is Wind. and unfortunately, I Think that over the past Several Years, we have a taken an Approach that had had american public. It Has Not Helped The Industry to Grow Into Being ABLE TO SERVE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AS IT HOPES TO, AND IT IS, FRANKLY, NOT SERVING The STAFF OF THE COMMISSION EITHER Playing A Role in Writing Policy. And it has been saying to Policy Folks, People Who Write Rules and Do Interpretations and Provide Guidance, IT SAID TO THEM, YOU CAN’T DO THAT BECAUSE west. And that have been led to a Lot of Really Bad Consequences. And i’m hoping we can right that ship.

Just to close in the last few minutes, is there anything we have a discussed thing In mind or THINK About over the Next Couple of Weeks and Months?

I Just Hope People Will Go to Our Crypto Web Page – It’s On the Sec Website, You’ll See A Link To The Crypto Web Page. SEND US A MESSAGE, SHEE MEET WITH US. We’d Love to Talk to You. We’d Love to Hear From You, and So Just Stay Tuned.

Awesome. Thank you very Much, Commissioner, Pleasure as Always,

Thank you so much for having me.

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This WeekTuesday

• 14:00 UTC (10:00 AM ET) The House Financial Services Committee Held A Hearing on Stablecoin Legislation.
• 20:30 UTC (16:30 pm et) The Entire House of Representatives Voted in Favor of the Congressional Review Acting Acting the Irs’ Defi Broker Rule Fund The US Government Through Sept.

Thursday

• 14:00 UTC (10:00 AM et) The Senate Banking Committee Held a Markup on the Senate Stablecoin Bill, with a bipartisan Majority of the Panel Ultimately Voting to Send the Bill To The Fulle Senate.

Elsewhere:

• (Reuters) A US GREEN CARD HOLDER WAS DETAINED BY IMMIGration and Customs Enforcement, Apparently Without a Warrant or Charges. Mahmoud Khalil, A Columbia University Graduate Student of Palestinian Origin, Was Arrested On Saturday and Faces Deportation. Reuters Reported that HE WAS A NEGOTITIOR BETWEEN COLUMBIA ADMINISTRATORS AND STUDENT PRESTORS at Columbia Last Year, and Thought He Reportedly Atding the Ame. or Participate in any encampoments. The Department of Homeland Security and US President Donald Trump Both Acknowledged Khalil’s Detection, and A White House SpokesPerson Told the FREE Press that Khalila is not accounting. Presumably this casse will be of interest to the free speech and civil liberty propons with the Crypto Industry.
• (The Wall Street Journal) People Representing US President Donald Trump’s Family have been in Talks to Acquire a stake Separataly Been Looking for A Presidential Pardon, The Journal Reported. Cz Said Had Not Made a Deal for A Pardon and Has Not Discussed A Binance.us Deal, Thought His Statement Does Not Appear to the Journal’s Actual Reporting. Unchated Reported that Cz is Trying to Sell Part of His Stake
• (The Wall Street Journal) Michelle Bowman is the Frontrunner to Become The New Fed Vice Chair for Supervision, The Journal Reported.
• (Wired) X, Formerly Known As Twitter, Was Down for A Bit Earlier this Week, Apparently Due to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attack.
• (Senator cynthia lummis) Sen. Cynthia lummis reintroduced a bill that wold Direct the US Government to Create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Built Up By Using Surplus Remittance Fees To Purchase Btc.
• (Propublica) Ernst and Young (EY) is in Talks with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to Trial Using Crypto to Pay Federal Grants.
• (CATO INSTITUTE) The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Lowered the Currency Transaction Reporting Threshold from $ 10,000 to $ 200 for Transactions in 30 Zip Codes in California and Texas.
• (The Verge) Sen. Ron Wyden, An Oregon Democrat, Wrote An Oped Defending Section 230 of the Communications Dectoration Act, WHICH PROTESTS Companies from Being Treated As The Publiser or Speaker of Conce.

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