Developments in Securities Regulation, Corporate Governance, Capital Markets, M&A and Other Topics of Interest. MORE

On January 21, 2025, SEC Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda launched a crypto task force charged with “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.”

The SEC acknowledged in the announcement that it “has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively,” resulting in “confusion about what is legal, which creates an environment hostile to innovation and conducive to fraud.” The task force will “help the Commission draw clear regulatory lines, provide realistic paths to registration, craft sensible disclosure frameworks, and deploy enforcement resources judiciously.”

The task force will be led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, and will include Uyeda’s senior advisor, Richard Gabbert, as its chief of staff, and Uyeda’s senior policy advisor, Taylor Asher, as its chief policy advisor. The task force will coordinate with federal departments and agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and state and international counterparts, as well as across SEC divisions and offices.

Peirce noted that the task force “will succeed only if [it] has input from a wide range of investors, industry participants, academics, and other interested parties. To that end, the task force anticipates holding roundtables in the future and welcomes public input via email in the meantime.

President Donald Trump has already announced that he intends to nominate Paul Atkins to chair the Commission, but the Senate has yet to schedule a hearing on his nomination.