Hester Peirce departs SEC after years of advocating for digital assets

Hester Peirce, the SEC commissioner crypto fans nicknamed “Crypto Mom,” officially left the agency on October 2, 2026. Her departure ends a run that began in January 2018 and outlasted two presidential administrations. A two-person commission With Peirce gone, the SEC is down to two commissioners: Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda. Both are Republican appointees. No successor has been named to fill her seat. Peirce announced the move on X on September 25, 2026. Her resignation letter was dated September 21 and took effect on October 2. She called her time at the agency the “honor of my professional lifetime.” Her term technically expired in June 2025, but she stayed on in a holdover capacity for more than a year. That arrangement let her keep shaping rulemaking and votes well past her formal end date. Her next stop is academia. Peirce is set to become an associate professor at Regent University School of Law in November 2026. The Crypto Task Force legacy Peirce’s biggest crypto footprint came through the SEC Crypto Task Force, which she led. The group took on token classification—how to determine which tokens count as securities and which do not—and staking guidance,...