SEC Commissioners Said To Be Planning Crypto Overhaul When Gensler Leaves

Republican commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are planning to start an overhaul of its crypto policies as soon as President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s resignation on inauguration day will leave Republican appointees Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda with a majority on the commission, and they are not intending to wait for a new chairman, Reuters reports.

The two are considering starting the process of creating rules or at least clarifying guidance for when the Commission considers cryptocurrencies to be securities, the report said.

Both have been critical of Gensler’s handling of cryptocurrency policy, which the industry has repeatedly criticized as regulation by enforcement.

Coinbase Win

Coinbase recently won a victory over the SEC, when an appeals court declared its refusal to issue clear crypto regulations “arbitrary and capricious” and told it to provide more than a one-paragraph rejection of the request for clarity on when a cryptocurrency is or is not a security.

Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick as incoming chairman of the SEC, is widely expected to halt the agency’s crypto crackdown, in which it has called virtually every token except bitcoin and ether to be securities.

Peirce, known as “Crypto Mom” for her early advocacy for the crypto industry on the SEC, and Uyeda both worked for Atkins when he was a commissioner at the SEC from 2002 to 2008. They are said to have already had discussions about changing the agency’s approach to cryptocurrency regulation.