As SEC’s ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Leaves Office, Industry Urges Her Pro-Crypto Policy Line to Continue

The U.S. digital-asset industry is urging policymakers to carry forward the approach championed by Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leaves office on October 2. Peirce has long been known in the industry as “Crypto Mom” for her friendly stance toward digital assets.

Will Schwartz, the Blockchain Association’s head of policy, wrote in a CoinDesk opinion piece on October 2 that “it is now up to us to carry Commissioner Peirce’s mission forward.” He wrote that the technology already exists to let consumers control their own data while still meeting legal obligations.

Schwartz said Peirce spent the past eight years at the SEC pressing for clear rules rather than regulation by enforcement. He wrote that she helped shape a regulatory framework for digital assets by proposing a token safe harbor and leading the SEC’s crypto task force. In his view, she also consistently argued that the SEC’s investor-protection mandate requires clear regulatory guidance for the fast-growing digital-asset industry.

Schwartz said the next goal for the U.S. digital-asset industry should be “financial privacy,” which Peirce highlighted before her departure. He wrote that the current U.S. financial regulatory system is built around collecting and storing large amounts of personal data from consumers using the financial system. Centralized data repositories magnify the damage from data breaches and expose consumers to greater risk, he added.

Schwartz said privacy-enhancing technologies such as blockchain and zero-knowledge proofs, or ZKPs, could offer an alternative. He wrote that zero-knowledge proofs allow individuals to prove they are eligible to make a transaction without disclosing unnecessary information. That would let consumers retain control of their data while still complying with legal obligations. He added that the technology needed to build a consumer-centered digital economy already exists, but what is lacking is a regulatory framework that allows and encourages its adoption.