The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could have a significantly different outlook on the crypto sector in 2025.
On Friday, SEC Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga announced he would step down from his position in January, following in the footsteps of the regulator’s chair, Gary Gensler, who published a similar announcement the previous day.
Both Gensler and Lizárraga are Democrats who expressed deep concern about the digital asset sector. Under Gensler’s leadership, the securities watchdog launched high-profile enforcement actions against many crypto firms, including industry giants Binance, Kraken, Coinbase, Ripple Labs, Uniswap Labs and Consensys.
Lizárraga said in 2022 that he “generally” agreed with Gensler’s assessment that “most of the nearly 10,000 digital asset tokens in the market are likely offered as securities.”
Lizárraga also expressed concern that crypto intermediaries could be acting as “unregistered market participants.” The commissioner, who previously worked as Nancy Pelosi’s senior advisor for nearly 15 years, was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2022, and his term wasn’t set to expire until 2027.
Lizárraga will step down on January 17th, and Gensler will retire on January 20th, President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration day.
After expressing skepticism about Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto during his previous presidential term, Trump spent the past year on the campaign trail promising to protect and grow the digital asset sector.
At campaign events over the past months, he promised to fire Gensler on his first day in office and end policies that prevent crypto investors and companies from using digital assets.
He also said the US would stop selling its trove of seized Bitcoin on the open market and instead strategically hold the asset as an investment.
No more than three members of the SEC’s five-person board of commissioners can belong to the same political party. The SEC currently has three Democratic and two Republican commissioners.
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