SEC Crypto Mom Greets Pro-Crypto Acting Chairman

Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Roisman’s appointment is not official. The SEC and White House have not confirmed the fact. However, Commissioner Price, known to the crypto community as Crypto Mom, did tweet her greetings.

Feat of Clayton at SEC

The move comes a day after SEC Chairman Jay Clayton announced his immediate departure. Clayton indicated in November that he would leave by year-end. However, the actual date was not previously specified. 

Clayton’s departure itself came a day after the SEC formally charged Ripple and two of its top executives with selling $1.3 billion in unregistered securities. The SEC claims that along with Ripple Labs itself, founder and former CEO Larsen and current CEO Garlinghouse also ‘affected’ about $600 million in personal sales. These sales lacked the disclosure necessary to allow potential investors the opportunity to understand what they were buying.

Short tenure

While Clayton dragged his feet over Bitcoin ETFs, others are dreaming of them. For example, Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal is one of them. In a recent interview, he stated that he saw Bitcoin ETFs as one of the catalysts for Bitcoin’s march upward.

However, Roisman’s tenure as Acting Chairman, if the White House does make it official, is likely to be short. Observers expect President-Elect Joe Biden to appoint his own SEC Commissioner early in 2021. 

In the meantime, the crypto community has a relatively digital-currency friendly Acting Commissioner on its hands. During his confirmation hearings in the US Senate in 2018, Roisman took a pro-crypto direction. At the end of his opening remarks, Roisman stated that the SEC needs to review its rules to keep them “working as intended”. This applied, he said, in particular to “areas such as data protection and cybersecurity, as well as the emergence of new investments and technologies such as initial coin offerings and blockchain.”