The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could have a significantly different view of the crypto sector in 2025.
On Friday, SEC Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga announced he would leave his post in January, following in the footsteps of the regulator’s chairman, Gary Gensler, who issued a similar announcement the day before.
Both Gensler and Lizárraga are Democrats who expressed deep concerns about the digital assets sector. Under Gensler’s leadership, the securities watchdog launched high-profile enforcement actions against many crypto companies, 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 on the market are likely to be offered as securities.”
Lizárraga also expressed concern that crypto intermediaries could act as “unregistered market participants.” The commissioner, who previously worked as a senior adviser to Nancy Pelosi for almost 15 years, was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2022 and his term would not end until 2027.
Lizárraga will step down on January 17 and Gensler will retire on January 20, the inauguration day of newly elected President Donald Trump.
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 in recent months, he pledged 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 hoard of seized Bitcoin on the open market and instead strategically hold it as an investment.
No more than three members of the SEC’s five-member supervisory board can belong to the same political party. The SEC currently has three Democratic and two Republican commissioners.
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