U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Pierce has confirmed that she will leave the agency this November, ending nearly 30 years of public sector service in Washington. Pierce, known as the "Crypto Mom" for her long-standing relatively open stance towards the crypto industry, will leave as the SEC continues to advance discussions on a regulatory framework for digital assets.
The departure date has been clarified.
Pierce recently stated on a podcast that she will be leaving the SEC in November to become an associate professor at Regent University's Faculty of Law. She said she hopes to shift her focus to teaching and be involved in nurturing the next generation of legal talent.
Pierce was initially sworn in in January 2018, re-nominated in 2020, and confirmed for re-election by the U.S. Senate in August of that year. Her term expires on June 5, 2025, but under U.S. law, commissioners can remain in office for up to 18 months until a successor is confirmed.
This means she could have remained in her position until around early December 2026, but she has confirmed she will leave several weeks earlier.
SEC faces personnel vacancies in crypto regulation
Pierce was appointed head of the SEC's Cryptography Working Group in early 2025. After her departure, the SEC will have only two active commissioners remaining: Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, and there will be no Democratic-appointed commissioners within the agency for the time being.
This change is particularly noteworthy at this juncture. The US crypto industry is awaiting clearer guidelines from the SEC regarding the regulatory framework for digital assets, and Pierce has long been considered a key figure in this process.
Before leaving office, her key priorities included encouraging more companies to go public earlier and reforming market structures such as abolishing the trade-through rule.
The "innovation exemption" has not yet been released.
Regarding the market's focus on the "innovation exemption" for digital assets, Pierce also proactively downplayed the issue on the program. She stated that this arrangement has not yet been released, and there have been many misunderstandings from the outside world.
She specifically pointed out that some people interpret this as supporting the trading of synthetic securities, but this was not within the scope initially considered by the SEC. In other words, even if this exemption is introduced, it does not mean that regulators will fully liberalize all kinds of financial products related to blockchain.
However, judging from her statement, the relevant discussions are still seen as a step forward in the regulation of digital assets, only that the actual scope of application may be narrower than the market expects.
