Skip to content

Person

Hester Peirce

SEC Commissioner leading the agency's Crypto Task Force, set to depart in November 2026.

Known aliases

  • Commissioner Hester Peirce
  • Commissioner Peirce
  • Crypto Mom
  • Hester M. Peirce
  • Hester Peirce
  • Peirce

Current stories

investConfirmed14 publishers

The SEC's five-year exemption hands issuers a veto over which stocks a venue may tokenize

A September 17 order lets qualifying platforms trade fully backed tokenized NMS stocks without registering as exchanges or dealers. Every stock takes 30 days of notice to an issuer that is free to refuse it.

Perspective Coverage

14 publishers
Builder
Builder 25%
Operator
Operator 40%
Investor
Investor 35%

Reality

Evidence80
Adoption12
Hype gap+40
Incentives60
Confidence70
investConfirmed15 publishers

SEC prices its crypto self-custody fallback at $433,833 a year per adviser

SEC estimates its proposed crypto self-custody fallback will cost each adviser that uses it $433,833 a year, and assumes about 823 firms will. After the CLARITY Act's Senate failure, that price helps decide which advisers can hold newly launched tokens for clients.

Perspective Coverage

15 publishers
Builder
Builder 21%
Operator
Operator 45%
Investor
Investor 34%

Reality

Evidence76
Adoption8
Hype gap+10
Incentives62
Confidence70
investConfirmed5 publishers

French Hill wants a crypto statute because a new administration could undo SEC and CFTC rules

French Hill, the House Financial Services chair, says SEC and CFTC crypto rules fall short of the CLARITY Act the Senate blocked 49-50 last month. His case is that a later administration can rewrite rules issued under existing agency authority, while a statute would hold.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 20%
Operator
Operator 43%
Investor
Investor 37%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives62
Confidence70
investOne report1 publisher

New SEC rule lets one commissioner alone constitute a quorum when all others are disqualified from a matter

Either Paul Atkins or Mark Uyeda can now act alone as the SEC's quorum under a rule effective Oct. 2, but only on matters where the other is disqualified. Decisions on the pending crypto custody and offering proposals therefore sit with a Commission of two people.

Publishers:cryptoslate.com

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
investConfirmed3 publishers

Hester Peirce argues in her final SEC weeks that bigger KYC files make criminals harder to find

Hester Peirce used her penultimate week as an SEC commissioner to urge replacing bulk KYC collection with zero-knowledge proofs of eligibility. She filed no proposal and spoke for herself, so the collection rules she criticized stay as written.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 35%
Operator
Operator 37%
Investor
Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives50
Confidence65
investConfirmed6 publishers

Hester Peirce's Oct. 2 exit leaves two Republicans running the SEC

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, head of the agency's Crypto Task Force, resigns Oct. 2, leaving Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda as its only two commissioners. Neither her seat nor Caroline Crenshaw's has a nominee, so crypto policy now rests on two Republican votes.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 23%
Operator
Operator 45%
Investor
Investor 32%

Reality

Evidence76
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives60
Confidence74
investConfirmed3 publishers

SEC proposals give advisors more room to take a share of client capital gains

SEC proposals approved Wednesday would give registered investment advisors much more room to charge performance fees on capital gains in client accounts. Interval-fund changes and a credential route to accredited status widen what retail clients can buy, and the fee rule changes how advisors get paid for it.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 6%
Operator
Operator 47%
Investor
Investor 47%

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption8
Hype gap+30
Incentives55
Confidence62
leadershipOne report1 publisher

SEC weighs three ways to open private markets to retail investors

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins brought three retail-access items to a Commission meeting, on performance fees, interval funds and credential-based accreditation. Each is still a proposal or notice, so sponsors get a direction this quarter and the terms later.

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives70
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Nine days after Clarity stalled, the Fed proposed stablecoin rules under a law Congress already passed

Fed proposals issued Sept. 24 would set stablecoin rules under the already-enacted GENIUS Act, nine days after the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate. Clarity's unresolved jurisdiction questions still lack a statute, and the SEC's crypto task force leader, Hester Peirce, leaves Oct. 2.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption20
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence45
investConfirmed7 publishers

SEC's token on-ramp: a $5M starter round, a $75M tier, and the end of state review

Regulation Crypto Assets borrows the JOBS Act structure for digital assets and preempts state registration, including on secondary trades. The preemption is the part that changes deal papering.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 29%
Operator
Operator 35%
Investor
Investor 36%

Reality

Evidence78
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives60
Confidence72
investOne report1 publisher

SEC hands onchain equities to whoever can pass dividends and votes through

The SEC's Sept. 17 order lets venues trade tokenized stocks in permissioned AMM pools without registering as exchanges, if the token passes the underlying's dividends and votes to the holder. Robinhood's 200 tokens are Jersey debt paper.

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption34
Hype gap+18
Incentives70
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

a16z and the DeFi Education Fund ask Peirce to exempt DEXs that clear four tests

The joint letter to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce defines a qualifying decentralized exchange by four tests, three of them checkable against deployed code and the fourth a judgement about who holds discretionary privileges.

Reality

Evidence33
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+22
Incentives82
Confidence41
productOne report1 publisher

X tells a London court it spent £75,000 catching a £207,384 creator-payout network

The particulars of claim filed on September 17 name two men in Preston, nine handles and a Stripe profile in a third name. X is chasing payments made under a creator program it has already closed.

Publishers:gizmodo.com

Reality

Evidence52
Adoption45
Hype gap+12
Incentives70
Confidence55
leadershipConfirmed2 publishers

A five-year SEC exemption lets tokenized NMS stocks trade in permissioned liquidity pools

The order carves out a new category called a tokenized securities venue, caps how many symbols and how much volume it can trade, and requires public smart contracts while the Commission drafts permanent rules.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 23%
Operator
Operator 32%
Investor
Investor 45%

Reality

Evidence88
Adoption10
Hype gap+15
Incentives68
Confidence80
investOne report1 publisher

Bitcoin's 23.5% week was a Treasury trade, and Treasury can take it back

US debt crossed $40 trillion and the interest bill now tops Medicare. The buyback that helped move gold and bitcoin was $4 billion, or one hundredth of one percent of the stock.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption44
Hype gap+34
Incentives74
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

The SEC cut crypto's legal risk using instruments the next chair can withdraw

An enforcement retreat, a rescinded custody bulletin and a fresh rulemaking improve the arithmetic for US digital-asset firms. None of it needed Congress, and none of it binds a successor.

Reality

Evidence34
Adoption30
Hype gap+18
Incentives72
Confidence33
investOne report1 publisher

SEC forum's top early-stage asks: rewrite who counts as accredited, quadruple the Reg CF cap

Participants at the SEC's 45th Small Business Forum voted to expand the accredited investor test and lift Reg CF from $5 million to $20 million. An October rulemaking is the test of intent.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption18
Hype gap+22
Incentives72
Confidence46