WASHINGTON, D.C. — The personnel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with the cryptocurrency sector to develop policies for regulating digital asset transactions, according to Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s crypto task force.
The securities regulator is eager “to actively pursue a feasible framework,” Peirce remarked during the agency’s inaugural crypto-focused roundtable on Friday. “I believe we’re prepared for the progress ahead,” she noted, referring to the event titled “Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity.”
The challenge, as framed by Peirce: “Can we translate the defining traits of a security into a clear taxonomy that encompasses the diverse range of crypto assets that exist now and may arise in the future?”
Acting chairman Mark Uyeda informed reporters that despite recent SEC policy declarations indicating that certain segments of the crypto sphere—like memecoins and mining—are not governed by securities laws, it remains a “definite possibility” that others could be classified as securities.
“We are operating on multiple fronts here,” he said in response to a question. Each statement released to date “is essentially a staff statement,” which lacks legal authority, but he noted that the roundtable signifies the collective examination of the potential “commission interpretation” by the current three-member commission.
During his introductory comments at the event, Uyeda—who was appointed by President Trump and awaits Senate confirmation for Paul Atkins—contended that the agency should have been more forthcoming in recent years about making such interpretations public.
“In instances where judicial rulings have generated uncertainty for our participants, the commission and its staff have intervened to provide guidance,” Uyeda stated. “Utilizing a common rulemaking process to clarify the commission’s procedures or releases, rather than relying solely on enforcement actions, should have been considered for defining crypto assets under federal securities laws.”
Panel Discussion
The panel featured a dozen attorneys specializing in securities law within the crypto industry, who shared insights on the particular challenges they encounter while advising companies.
“What is the biggest question you face in addressing this issue?,” posed moderator Troy Paredes, a former SEC commissioner now operating the consulting firm Paredes Strategies, to Sarah Brennan, general counsel at Delphi Ventures and one of the panelists.
“The looming application of securities laws has caused early-stage projects to adopt a trajectory akin to that of initial public offerings, leading them to remain private for extended periods,” she replied.
“These assets are traditionally structured for broad early distribution, yet due to concerns surrounding securities laws, they tend to resemble traditional markets where participants seek exchange listings without wide dissemination, price support, or fully launching the technology.”
The discussion included critics of the industry as well as attorneys involved in its development.
“Whether discussing yield farms, ostrich farms, or orange groves, the principle behind securities regulation is to encompass everything within a broad, principle-based framework,” former SEC attorney John Reed Stark commented. He felt that a significant portion of the market lacks utility, even as far as 2025.
“If it all vanished tomorrow, and you weren’t speculating in it, you wouldn’t care,” he said.
Legislative Inquiries
Before the roundtable, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jake Auchincloss, both from Massachusetts, sent an open letter to Uyeda seeking clarity on the SEC’s staff statement regarding memecoins and its development process.
The letter inquired if there had been any communications with the White House regarding the statement, whether the White House’s crypto working group had influenced the SEC’s actions, and why this statement wasn’t incorporated into formal rulemaking.
The Senators also requested the SEC clarify how it would differentiate memecoins from “general cryptocurrency,” the criteria for distinguishing between legitimate memecoins and those that do not align with the staff statement, as well as which specific memecoins were analyzed during the drafting of the staff statement.