A story from Reuters says that the Republican commissioners of the SEC are planning to change the agency’s crypto policies as soon as President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
As early as next week, Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda will start making changes. They will focus on making it clear how crypto asset stocks are classified and looking over enforcement cases.
According to people who know about the situation, the agency may stop or drop some lawsuits that aren’t related to theft.
The change in policy comes at a time when Trump’s choice for SEC Chair, Paul Atkins, is expected to undo the way the agency was regulated under former Chair Gary Gensler.
Atkins, who used to be a commissioner of the SEC, is likely to make crypto-friendly rules after being confirmed by the Senate.
Both Peirce and Uyeda used to work for Atkins, and they want to start making new rules by asking the public and the industry what they think about how to classify crypto tokens.
During Gensler’s time as chairman, the SEC took 83 moves against companies like Coinbase and Kraken that dealt with crypto.
Accounting rules that said public companies couldn’t hold crypto for clients are likely to be thrown out by the new leadership. Trump has said he wants to be a “crypto president” and is planning to use executive orders to look again at crypto rules.
Legal experts warn of possible problems. Philip Moustakis says that courts might not agree with dropping enforcement steps or changing the outcome of cases that have already been decided.
Robert Cohen, a former SEC enforcement division official, said: “I think the industry wants to see fraudsters or wrongdoers held accountable.”
As markets responded to the latest CPI report showing that inflation was falling, Bitcoin got close to $100,000.
