Welcome back everybody. What an esteemed set of guests we have today. We are going to continue Crypto in America Live. This time with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce.
And we're back. And we're back like we'd never left.
Hester, welcome back.
It's good to see you.
It's great to be here. I got to give you my disclaimer, though. My views are my own views as a commissioner, not necessarily those of the SEC or my fellow commissioners.
Well, yes, you gave us the same. Yes.
Fair enough.
You did give us the same disclaimer when you came on our show almost a year ago now. You were our first guest when we launched Crypto in America back in March of last year. So, it's an honor to have you back nearly a year later, but we'd love to have you back.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You did have a cold. I remember.
But you were a trooper and you came on anyway. So, thank you for that. But we got to ask you, let's kind of recap the year a little bit. I mean, not that anything major has happened at all. But I guess from your vantage point where you're sitting at the SEC, head of the task force, what has really been the biggest change in your eyes this year?
Well, last year I would say it was a 180. Having a chairman who is really committed to... I hope there'll be big changes this year too, but having a chairman who's really committed to trying to get the rules written before we enforce them is very helpful. He's someone who believes that we can get to a good place where there's a reasonable rule book in place that people can comply with and I think that should lead the industry to a better place as well.
I don't think we asked you this question because you were the first guest and we didn't really come up with it yet, but we always like to ask people who come on the show is what does crypto in America mean to you? I think you might have asked me. So you can see if my answer is consistent, but...
You know, I think the reason that this is an issue that a lot of us in this country care about is because it really does go to the fundamental principles that this country was built on. It goes to the idea that people are free to make their lives what they want them to be. They're free to associate with people that they choose to associate with and they're free to speak and they're free to put value in what they choose to put value in. And so I think aligning the regulatory framework with that makes sense, right? Because it really does go to these core principles of freedom, liberty, privacy.
On that note, when we last talked, I think the crypto task force had just been announced. You were just putting it together and sort of launching it and it's obviously been an incredibly exciting very busy year. Lots of guidance on a lot of different topics. I know tokenization is taking up a lot of bandwidth in the room now. What would you say is maybe the biggest accomplishment or sort of defining achievement that you would put as a feather in the cap just going back through the last year since we first talked?
I mean, I think we assembled a great task force and I think that's evident in the amount of work that we've gotten done and the task force is working with people across the commission. So, the staff at the commission have really stepped up and worked with us. But yeah, putting together this great group of people who are really smart, who are really interested in getting it right. Mike Celig already left to go be the chairman of the CFTC. So, I feel like that was a feather in our cap.
And moving on to this year, it's crazy how time flies in crypto, right? I'm like, this year, but no, it's 2025. So, thinking about 2026, what do you think will be the defining moment or the defining accomplishment for the SEC? What do you guys hope to achieve that you'll be remembered for, as it were, in 26?
Well, I think during 25 a lot of what we were trying to do is go out and listen to people. We put out lots of questions. We've gotten lots of written submissions. Welcome more of those if you all have ideas of what we should be doing. We've also had lots of roundtables. We've been meeting with a lot of people. And then we started by putting out staff guidance that would sort of help people understand how we're thinking about what fits within the securities bucket and what doesn't. We went from a world in which the agency was saying everything that is crypto is a security to I think a much more nuanced approach that says no actually probably most of what is out there now is not a security but we expect that there are going to be a lot more crypto assets that are securities as people try to tokenize stocks and bonds and so we've gotten a lot of guidance out and 26 I think is really the year that's going to have to be marked by more durable regulatory positions that are in commission documents, commission rulemakings and then you all were just talking about clarity and so I think if that gets passed then we'll have a lot of work to do in implementing that and I think 26 will also be a year of really close collaboration with the CFTC to make sure that the rulemakings are coming out harmoniously and that it is really a whole of government approach to getting this right.
There's been a lot of enthusiasm from the industry on how approachable you've been and how visible the agency has been in this administration. You mentioned sort of talking to builders. We were talking a bit backstage before we came on about the sort of road shows that you guys have done talking to founders and teams all over the country about what they've been building. It's obviously incredibly refreshing approach coming from the previous administration which was maybe a bit of an ivory tower and then we'll send you a Wells notice kind of conversational environment.
When ETH was a security.
Yeah, different times. But so I'm just curious with the roundtables that you've done and also sort of the road show and sort of the grassroots efforts that you guys have put together what's been the most rewarding part of that for you and what have been some of the takeaways that you've had from talking to builders around the country?
I mean, it's always rewarding to hear about what people are excited about building. It's rewarding to hear... I mean, I'm grateful that people are willing to talk to us because there was some really deep suspicion built up over the last several years. And I think the willingness of people to say, 'Okay, we're going to give you SEC a second chance to get this right.' That has been really encouraging. But I think I'm always excited when I see young people who are eager to build in this space and who are just helpful in helping me think about what regulation looks like from their standpoint and then sort of it's always good fodder for me to think about how can we get these rules right. So I guess that's been the most rewarding piece of it.
Yeah. Following what Gerald's talking about, I always see when you tweet like, 'I will be in town these days. Email me if you want to have a meeting.' And I've always appreciated that. With the conversations you're having in Denver specifically, if you could speak to it a bit, like what are people coming to you about? What are you discussing with them?
I mean, the theme to me this time has been people are really interested in thinking about AI agents and how they'll interact with, I guess, everything we do, including how they interact with crypto. I think privacy is another big theme that people want to talk about which is great. And then you know people are always asking the same questions like when are we going to get maximum clarity on all these issues that are still outstanding.
At the innovation exemption.
Yeah, tokenization is obviously sort of the buzzword of the year right? Everyone is trying to get as involved in tokenization as humanly possible. What would you say is sort of maybe the timeline for sort of implementing... I mean, I think the tokenization part of the innovation exemption that'll make a lot of that stuff clearer, right? We'll probably give a lot of green light to folks who want to get more involved on that side of the spectrum. But like I always hear people talking about we're going to tokenize this, we're going to tokenize that, we're going to bring markets on chain. Like to you in your position as a regulator, how long do you see that timeline being until we start bringing capital markets on chain? At least parts of it.
