SEC Commissioner to Step Down

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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Elad Roisman has announced his decision today to resign from his position as one of five members on the SEC board of commissioners.

In his official statement, Roisman stated that he “sent a letter to President Biden, informing him that I intend to resign my position by the end of January.” The commissioner remains committed to working with his fellow commissioners and the rest of the staff until the end of his tenure to “further the mission of protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.”

Roisman entered office in September 2018 under the Trump administration and served as interim SEC chair from December 2020 to January 2021 following former SEC chair Jay Clayton’s sudden resignation. During his time at the SEC, Roisman has been considered somewhat of an ally to the cryptocurrency industry based on his stance on regulation. While serving as the chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in 2018, Roisman stated that the SEC should “examine and re-examine its rules, regulations, and guidelines to ensure that they are still working as intended” regarding digital assets and other new technological innovations.

This sentiment has continued into recent times where Roisman along with fellow SEC Commissioner Hester M. Peirce released a joint statement last week highlighting the failures of the SEC’s agenda pertaining to cryptocurrency and regulatory clarity. The duo stated their “disappointment” with SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s newly released regulatory agenda, which fails to provide more clarity on digital assets and makes no mention of any regulation of the new asset class.

Alterations to the SEC leadership could potentially result in either the advancement or the continued lack of progression of regulatory clarity pertaining to the digital asset space. Currently the SEC, the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and other U.S. regulatory bodies all have differing definitions of cryptocurrency that often results in ambiguity.