Hester Peirce is leaving the SEC: Why she became known as “Crypto Mom”

​Hester Peirce is leaving the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after eight years at the agency. During that time, she became one of the most prominent advocates for the crypto industry among U.S. officials. She earned the nickname “Crypto Mom” long before Bitcoin ETFs and tokenization became part of the financial mainstream.

Her final day at the Commission

Hester Peirce will officially leave the SEC on Oct. 2. She published her resignation letter on Sept. 25, thanking the president for the opportunity to serve at the agency. Her formal term expired back in June 2025, but SEC rules allow commissioners to remain in office for roughly another 18 months if no replacement is appointed.

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Peirce joined the SEC in January 2018 after being nominated by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate. She won a second term in 2020. Her first nomination to a Republican seat on the Commission actually came from Barack Obama in 2015, but the Senate did not act on it at the time.

Since February 2025, Peirce had led the Crypto Task Force, a special SEC group created to develop rules for the digital asset market. The team worked on the status of different types of tokens, staking, mining and other crypto products, as well as the division of responsibilities among financial regulators.

After leaving the SEC, Peirce will join Regent University School of Law in Virginia. She will become an associate professor in November and will focus, among other areas, on securities regulation and digital assets. After her departure, only Chair Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda will remain at the SEC.

How “Crypto Mom” was born

The “Crypto Mom” nickname became associated with Peirce in the summer of 2018. At the time, the SEC rejected the proposed listing of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, an exchange-traded product designed to give investors access to Bitcoin through a regulated market. Peirce publicly dissented from the Commission’s decision and argued that the regulator was effectively denying investors the ability to decide for themselves whether they wanted such a product.

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For a U.S. official, that position was unusual at the time. Bitcoin was trading at around $8,000, there were no spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S., and the SEC was repeatedly rejecting applications for such products. Peirce argued that bans did not eliminate demand, but instead pushed investors to seek crypto exposure outside regulated markets. In September 2018, she said that the dispute over the Bitcoin ETF had led people to informally call her “Crypto Mom.”

Peirce continued to follow the same line. In 2019, she accused the SEC of holding back the industry, and in 2020 she again opposed the rejection of a Bitcoin exchange-traded product. At the time, she warned that the SEC’s constantly shifting requirements could drive developers and capital out of the U.S.

In 2020, Peirce proposed a three-year grace period for crypto projects. During that time, startups would be able to launch a network, attract users and demonstrate that a token was actually being used within a functioning ecosystem rather than simply serving as a fundraising tool.

From dissent to new rules

For years, Peirce’s proposals remained more of an alternative to the SEC’s official approach. That changed after Trump returned to the White House and the Commission’s leadership changed. The regulator began moving away from an approach in which disputed crypto issues were often settled through investigations and court cases, and toward developing dedicated rules for digital assets.

In the final months of Peirce’s tenure, that shift was already visible in concrete decisions. The SEC issued guidance on mining, staking, memecoins and crypto-asset classification, while also beginning to prepare special regimes for tokenized securities.

In July, Peirce separately addressed crypto vaults and onchain lending. She warned that moving a financial service onto a blockchain does not automatically exempt a company from securities laws. Depending on how they are structured, such products may fall under rules governing investment companies, advisers or securities.

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At the same time, Peirce opposed automatically forcing every new product into old regulatory categories. She argued that regulators should look at who controls the funds, how much discretion they have and what service the client is actually receiving. The scale of the issue is already measured in tens of billions of dollars: according to S&P Global Ratings, assets held in crypto vaults rose from about $24 billion to $131 billion over three years.

Another focus was the tokenization of traditional securities. The SEC began creating a temporary regime that would allow such products to be tested in a limited format before permanent rules are introduced. That was the same principle Peirce had promoted since the early years of her work with the crypto market.

Peirce is leaving, but her ideas remain

Hester Peirce is leaving at a time when many of the ideas she once argued over with the SEC no longer look radical. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are trading in the U.S., the SEC is writing dedicated rules for crypto assets, and tokenization has become part of the regulator’s agenda.

The story of “Crypto Mom” is therefore about more than the career of a single official. It shows how quickly the U.S. government’s approach to digital assets has changed: from repeated rejections and court battles to an effort to bring the crypto market into the traditional financial system through separate and clearer rules.