Hester Peirce to Leave the SEC

Hester Peirce, widely known in the cryptocurrency industry as “Crypto Mom,” has announced that she will leave the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November. She shared the news during an appearance on the Rollup podcast.

After nearly three decades in Washington, Peirce plans to close this chapter of her career and join the Regent University School of Law, where she will teach law. According to her, she wants to help prepare future generations of lawyers to tackle challenges that current policymakers have struggled to solve.

Peirce was appointed as an SEC Commissioner in January 2018. In 2020, she was reappointed and confirmed by the Senate for another term. Although her official term ended on June 5, 2025, regulations allowed her to remain in office until early December 2026. She has chosen to step down several weeks before that deadline.

Before leaving the SEC, Peirce hopes to complete several key initiatives. These include making it easier for companies to go public, eliminating the so-called trade-through rule, and advancing efforts to establish a clear and consistent regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market.

At the beginning of 2025, she was appointed head of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, a group focused on digital asset regulation. Her departure could have a significant impact on the industry, which has long viewed her as one of the agency’s strongest supporters of cryptocurrency innovation.

Once Peirce leaves, only two active commissioners will remain at the SEC: Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda. The commission will no longer have any Democratic-appointed commissioners.

Peirce also addressed speculation surrounding the SEC’s proposed “innovation exemption” for digital assets. She emphasized that the proposal has not yet been published and noted that some information circulating in the media is inaccurate. She also rejected claims that the initiative would support trading in synthetic securities.

According to Peirce, the SEC’s evolving approach should not be seen as unconditional support for blockchain technology. Instead, its goal is to create a more transparent and predictable environment for the growth of the digital asset market.