Commissioner Mark Uyeda took over running the US Securities and Exchange Commission as the agency awaits Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump’s pick for the permanent role, Paul Atkins.
Acting Chair Uyeda, who has been an outspoken supporter of relaxing the regulator’s pursuit of the crypto industry with fellow Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce, once served Atkins as an adviser to the agency. Atkins, who was formally appointed hours after Trump was sworn in on Monday, is a former commissioner who developed ties to crypto through his consulting business in Washington.
Uyeda expressed his own strong views about the SEC’s role regarding digital assets. He has always criticized the commission’s majority on crypto-restrictive measures, such as the so-called Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 (SAB 121) that made it difficult for banks to retain digital asset clients. He said he was in favor of removing it — a move now within his authority.
The replacement of the chairs has not been officially announced at the agency, although the remaining commissioners – including Hester Peirce and Caroline Crenshaw – issued a joint statement with the exit of former Chairman Gary Gensler.
“Although as Commissioners we approach policy issues from different perspectives, there is always dignity in our differences,” the commissioners said. “Chair Gensler is committed to bipartisan engagement and a respectful exchange of ideas, which has helped facilitate our service to the American public.”
Gensler previously announced that he would resign at noon on January 20 — the same time Trump was sworn into office.
Gensler has been the government’s chief antagonist for the crypto industry in recent years. He pursued enforcement cases, pushed controversial crypto accounting policy, favored tough regulatory proposals that threatened the industry’s business model and blocked — temporarily — the establishment of spot crypto exchange traded funds (ETFs). On the latter point, a court ruling against the agency forced Gensler’s hand, and he eventually voted with the commission’s Republicans to clear the way for ETFs.
His agency argued in court that the existing law was sufficient to categorize and regulate crypto assets. That stance has been favored by some federal judges and opposed by others, and key questions are still working their way through the courts.
Uyeda’s SEC, however long his tenure, is without nearly all of the top legal officials who worked under Gensler, including the enforcement division and the office of general counsel.
The acting president has the full authority of the office, but people in that position sometimes choose to defer to the incoming chair and wait on major decisions.
At the SEC’s sister agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Republican Commissioner Caroline Pham has been elevated to the acting chair role therethough Trump has yet to name a permanent successor to the outgoing Democrat chairman, Rostin Behnam.
Unlike the CFTC, which currently has a 2-2 split between the parties, the SEC’s Republicans outnumber the lone Democrat 2-1.
