• Commissioner Hester Peirce, the longest serving SEC commissioner, published a statement on Thursday criticizing SEC’s enforcement action against crypto exchange Kraken.
• She argued that Kraken received the action because its staking program should have been registered with the SEC as a securities offering and accused agency of being “hostile to crypto”.
• She called out her own agency for not thinking through implications for staking programs in order to put out guidance, and instead it had just chosen the route of enforcement action.

Commissioner Hester Peirce

Commissioner Hester Peirce is the longest serving commission under the chairmanship of Gary Gensler in the current 4 SEC commissioners. Since she started her term in 2018, commissioner Peirce has always maintained her independent views which are often different from those of the commission.

SEC’s Enforcement Action Against Crypto Exchange Kraken

On Thursday she published her dissent against the SEC’s recent enforcement action targeted at crypto exchange Kraken on their website. According to her argument, Kraken received the action because its staking program should have been registered with the SEC as a securities offering but getting it done through SEC pipeline would have been very difficult in such an environment.

SEC Criticized by Commissioner

Commissioner was not shy of criticizing her own agency for being „hostile to crypto“, saying that there was no attempt to develop a public process that could provide „workable registration“ and offer „valuable information to investors“. She called out her own agency for being „lazy and paternalistic“, accusing them of using enforcement actions rather than providing clear guidance on emerging industry matters like this one.

Commissioners Dissent

In order for people to know what law is applicable on emerging industry matters, Commissioner Peirce proposed developing a public process which can offer workable registration and valuable information about investments rather than using one-off enforcement actions everytime with cookie-cutter analysis technique which does not suffice in this case according to Commissioner.

Disclaimer

This article is provided only for informational purposes and should not be used as legal, tax, investment or financial advice.