SEC regulatory proposal marks ‘important’ step forward from ‘inapt’ crypto rules: Commissioner Peirce

“Crypto mom” Hester Peirce praised the SEC’s proposed crypto regime, published days after the Senate failed to pass the CLARITY Act, the US’ first comprehensive industry framework.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new regulatory proposal marks a significant step forward from a set of “inapt” crypto rules to clearer and more enforceable digital asset regulations, according to Commissioner Hester M. Peirce.

A “whole generation has struggled with the SEC’s insistence” and the application of “a set of inapt rules to crypto,” but the SEC’s new crypto guidelines mark an important step toward “putting clear, sensible, enforceable rules in place for crypto offerings,” said Peirce in a statement released on Tuesday.

SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins also praised the initiative and said that the agency’s prior enforcement-heavy approach has “driven investment offshore, limiting the type of protections that we can provide investors here,” according to a separate statement. 

In a Tuesday notice, the SEC proposed new rules to create a “clear and fit-for-purpose framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets,” allowing entities to raise capital while preserving investor protections.