SEC outlines steps to reverse Biden-era crypto enforcement

A senior SEC official has publicly characterized the Biden administration’s crypto strategy as an effort to prevent digital assets from gaining a foothold in the United States. The Trump-era SEC, the official said, has taken deliberate steps to dismantle that approach and replace it with something friendlier to the industry.

From enforcement blitz to olive branch

Under the Biden administration, the SEC launched dozens of enforcement actions against major crypto firms. Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken all found themselves in the agency’s crosshairs, facing lawsuits that carried existential implications for their US operations.

The Trump SEC has dismissed several of those high-profile cases, replacing the litigation campaign with what officials describe as a more calibrated approach focused on clear instances of fraud rather than broad jurisdictional claims.

One of the earliest and most consequential moves was the rescission of Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, known as SAB 121. That guidance required any financial institution custodying digital assets to record them as liabilities on its balance sheet. In practical terms, it made crypto custody so capital-intensive that most banks simply refused to touch it.