Peirce Exits SEC as Colleagues Say Her Crypto Push Set the Agenda
Commentary by Steven Lofchie
Commissioner Hester Peirce's exit from the SEC took effect October 2, 2026. Ms. Peirce served as an SEC staff member from 2000 to 2008 and had been Commissioner since 2018. Her staff work included serving as Counsel to SEC Chair Paul Atkins when he was a Commissioner.
Ms. Peirce, whose departure leaves the Commission with two members, will join Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach as an Associate Professor in November 2026. In a statement, Mr. Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda said Ms. Peirce's push for regulatory clarity set the SEC's course toward a framework for digital assets. Mr. Atkins and Mr. Uyeda said she challenged regulation by enforcement and pressed the Commission to give entrepreneurs a clear path to innovate in the United States, which earned her leadership of the Crypto Task Force. "Her courage and conviction set the course that we are on today toward a rational, workable framework for digital assets," the statement said. The statement named no successor.
"After nearly thirty years in DC, I am leaving the city and moving to the beach," Ms. Peirce said in June 9, 2026, remarks announcing her resignation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Capital Markets Summit. In those remarks, she said the SEC must limit itself to the powers Congress and the Constitution give it. She cited recent steps that she said reflect that limit, including ending the policy that barred settling defendants from denying the SEC's allegations and the proposal to rescind the climate disclosure rules. She also named areas where she said the Commission still goes too far. She questioned whether the investment adviser pay-to-play rule is constitutional and criticized the SEC's broad reading of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's internal accounting controls provision.
"Ours is a government grounded in timeless principles, not fleeting personalities," Ms. Peirce said. "The SEC will benefit from energetic new voices with fresh ideas about how to protect our precious and powerful capital markets."
Commentary
Ms. Peirce was, in my view, truly a great Commissioner: focused on the SEC's mission, respectful of the limits of its regulatory authority, funny, honest, and thoughtful. It is a shame that she had to spend so much of her tenure as a minority foil to a majority that was not equally mindful of the SEC's purposes or the legal limits of its authority.