Ex-SEC acting chair: Agency dropped crypto cases to avoid issues with credibility

At a Psaros Center panel on financial market quality, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said the agency abandoned several civil enforcement actions against cryptocurrency companies in early 2025 because it was about to pursue a major reversal in regulatory policy. Uyeda, who served as acting chair prior to Paul Atkins’s confirmation, argued that litigating under one interpretive stance and then issuing a substantially different commission interpretation would damage the SEC’s credibility in court. Uyeda said the agency had concerns that some of the crypto cases filed under the previous administration might not have been defensible under the new regulatory direction. He framed the decision to drop cases as a way to avoid putting SEC litigators in the position of defending positions the commission was preparing to reverse. The commissioner described the pending rulemaking as a near-total change in approach. The withdrawn actions affected several well-known industry participants, with Uyeda citing cases involving Kraken, Ripple Labs and Coinbase among those dropped. Critics have portrayed the moves as politically motivated retaliation tied to industry support for President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign; Trump had pledged to remove former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who led many of the enforcement actions, and Gensler resigned when the new administration took office. Uyeda has been an SEC commissioner since 2022 and remains on the commission alongside Chair Paul Atkins and Commissioner Hester Peirce. With Peirce expected to leave in November, the agency will operate with only two of its five commissioner slots filled, and the White House had not announced nominations to fill the vacancies at the time of Uyeda’s remarks.