Bitcoin in stasis as SEC’s new Crypto Task Force chief sets out slow-and-steady roadmap

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies seemed little moved by the first signs of the new regulatory landscape under President Donald Trump’s new Crypto Task Force.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formed the task force to create “regulatory clarity” and a formal regulatory framework for the crypto industry, according to a statement from Commissioner Hester Peirce, but the process is likely to take some time.

Pierce, who has been charged with leading the new Crypto Task Force, stressed not only that the “crypto road trip” towards the intended regulatory destination of would require patience and follow a dogmatic approach.

She said the first tasks the SEC is working on are:

• Examining crypto asset classifications under securities laws to clarify regulatory uncertainties.
• Identifying jurisdictional gaps and issuing no‐action letters to clarify enforcement discretion.
• Proposing temporary relief for coin/token offerings with disclosure, categorising them as non‐securities.
• Recommending modifications to registration paths to facilitate compliant token offerings under existing frameworks.

“It took us a long time to get into this mess, and it is going to take us some time to get out of it,” Pierce said, noting that the SEC first received bitcoin exchange-traded fund application in 2013 and first brought a fraud case with a crypto element in that same year.

She said the Commission’s handling of crypto has been “marked by legal imprecision and commercial impracticality”, which has led to many cases remaining in litigation, with many rules still in the proposal stage and many market participants remain in limbo.

“Determining how best to disentangle all these strands, including ongoing litigation, will take time. It will involve work across the whole agency and cooperation with other regulators. Please be patient.

“The Task Force wants to get to a good place, but we need to do so in an orderly, practical, and legally defensible way.”

Pierce emphasised that the Crypto Task Force aims to conclude the process with a regulatory landscape “where people have great freedom to experiment and build interesting things”, she said it “will not be a haven for fraudsters” and that rules are “designed to protect investors and the integrity of the marketplace”, and “we do not tolerate liars, cheaters, and scammers”.

On the other side of the coin, the SEC’s new commitment to a better regulatory environment “should not be viewed as an endorsement of any crypto coin or token”, she added, saying “the counterpart to that wonderful American liberty is the equally wonderful American expectation that people must decide for themselves, not look to Mama Government to tell them what to do or not to do, nor to bail them out when they do something that turns out badly”.

However, under US legal statutes and parameters put in place by Congress, Pierce said the SEC will use its “exemptive authority” as appropriate, with some rules likely to “impose costs and other compliance burdens that some may find irritating”.

On crypto markets, bitcoin was down 1.3% over 24 hours at $97,429, while Ethereum had gained 1.7% and XRP was down 0.7%.

Biggest gainers were led by the official Melania Meme coin, up 20%, with others including the Dogwifhat and Official Trump meme coins, up 9.7% and 7%.