The SEC has been walking back its historic hardline stance on crypto under the Trump administration, having held its first crypto roundtable earlier in March.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission will host four more crypto roundtables — focusing on crypto trading, custody, tokenization and decentralized finance (DeFi) — after hosting its first crypto roundtable on March 21.
The series of roundtables, organized by the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, will kick off with a discussion on tailoring regulation for crypto trading on April 11, the SEC said in a March 25 statement.
A roundtable on crypto custody will follow on April 25, with another to discuss tokenization and moving assets onchain on May 12. The fourth roundtable in the series will discuss DeFi on June 6.
“The Crypto Task Force roundtables are an opportunity for us to hear a lively discussion among experts about what the regulatory issues are and what the Commission can do to solve them,” said SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the task force lead.
The specific agenda and speakers for each roundtable have yet to be disclosed, but all are open for the public to watch online or to attend at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
SEC softens on crypto with new leadership
The agency’s Crypto Task Force was launched on Jan. 21 by acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda. It’s tasked with establishing a workable crypto framework for the agency to use.
The task force held its first roundtable on March 21 with a discussion titled “How We Got Here and How We Get Out — Defining Security Status.”
The SEC will also be hosting a roundtable about AI’s role in the financial industry on March 27, according to a March 25 release.
The roundtable will discuss the risks, benefits, and governance of AI in the financial industry, with Uyeda, Peirce and fellow SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw slated to speak.
Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
The regulator has dismissed a growing number of enforcement actions against crypto firms it launched under Gensler.
Uyeda, who took the reins after Gensler resigned on Jan. 20, flagged plans on March 17 to scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers.
Uyeda also said in a March 10 speech that he had asked SEC staff for options to abandon part of proposed changes that would expand regulation of alternative trading systems to include crypto firms, requiring them to register as exchanges.