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The newly-inaugurated President of the United States, Donald Trump, has appointed Mark Uyeda as the acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Effective Monday, the Republican temporarily replaces outgoing SEC chair, Gary Gensler, much to the fanfare of the crypto community.
Former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins was nominated by Trump in December to take on the role as the agency's permanent chair.
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Under Gensler’s term, the SEC intensified enforcement in the crypto sector, resulting in record fines and high-profile cases, including the imprisonment of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao.
Gensler described the crypto industry as being “rife with fraud,” a stark contrast to Trump’s crypto-friendly approach.
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Uyeda and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce are anticipated to initiate a cryptocurrency policy overhaul as early as this week. As a vocal critic of Gensler, Uyeda has called for a rehaul of the SEC.
"The pending administration change will give the SEC a chance to reset its regulatory agenda to focus on capital formation and innovation, while protecting investors, like seniors, from scam artists defrauding them," Uyeda said in November. He even went as far as calling the SEC's existing framework a "disaster for the whole industry."
Before his appointment as an SEC commissioner in June 2022, Uyeda built a career in public service and securities regulation. He served on the Senate Banking Committee under former U.S. Senator Pat Toomey and provided strategic counsel to California’s securities regulator during Arnold Schwarzenegger’s governorship.
Uyeda graduated from Georgetown University and Duke University School of Law and notably opposed several enforcement actions, including a settlement involving the blank-check company that facilitated the public listing of Trump’s media venture.
Last week, the SEC filed an appeal in the seemingly never-ending Ripple case, challenging a July 2023 court ruling that partially dismissed claims against the company.
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