SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on BitMEX, DeFi & Token Safe Harbor

Hester Peirce, AKA “Crypto Mom,” was just confirmed to a second term as SEC Commissioner of the Securities Exchange Commission in August. In this episode of Unchained Podcast with Laura Shin, she shares her views on some of the recent actions taken by SEC, including:

• The reasons for her dissent in the Unikrn Settlement and what she believes would have been a proper penalty.
• The current status of her token safe harbor proposal.
• Her thoughts on fair launch projects as opposed to traditional VC-backed tokens.
• Her view on how the SEC should view airdrops.
• Her thoughts on whether existing securities laws could be tweaked as opposed to implementing a safe harbor.
• whether she thinks DeFi governance tokens should be considered securities.
• Her thoughts on DeFi playing its own regulatory role.
• Her thoughts on the Securities Clarity Act introduced in Congress.
• The chances of a Bitcoin ETF being approved by the SEC in the future.
• The charges against BitMEX and the effect it may have on the industry in general.
• Stablecoins, and how they might raise securities issues.
• Whether she thinks that all securities could one day be tokenized.

The episode was published on October 13, 2020.