Crypto Mom To The Rescue? Hester Peirce Snubs SEC Plan For Increased Crypto Enforcement

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) member Hester Peirce — nicknamed "Crypto Mom" for her pro-crypto stances — voiced her opposition to recent decisions by the SEC.

What Happened: As reported by Benzinga on Wednesday, the SEC is hiring 20 cryptocurrency experts for its enforcement units to better confront the illegal activities conducted with the use of digital assets such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

In a tweet commenting on the agency's announcement, Peirce pointed out "the SEC is a regulatory agency with an enforcement division, not an enforcement agency." She then asked: "Why are we leading with enforcement in crypto?"

See Also: How To Earn Free Crypto

The SEC renamed its enforcement unit for cryptocurrency markets as Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit and is aiming to have a total of 50 employees. SEC chairman Gary Gensler said, "by nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets [...] and controls issues with respect to cybersecurity."

The new SEC unit is supposed to prevent fraud facilitated by cryptocurrency offerings, digital asset exchanges, crypto lending and staking products, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and stablecoins.

Photo: Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay