President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Mark Uyeda, a Republican SEC commissioner, to temporarily take over the helm of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing Gary Gensler who led the agency during the Biden-Harris administration. The appointment comes immediately after Gensler stepped down as Wall Street’s top cop on Jan. 20, as expected , alongside President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Mark Uyeda Takes Interim Leadership Of SEC Gary Gensler is now gone, a moment the crypto industry has long been waiting for. Hours after he was sworn into office, Trump tapped Mark Uyeda to hold down the fort as acting SEC boss until a permanent chair is confirmed. Back in December, Trump nominated former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to run the SEC on a long-term basis. However, Atkins is yet to be confirmed by the Senate. As an SEC commissioner, Uyeda has been a vocal critic of the agency’s “regulation through enforcement” approach under former chair Gensler. During an interview with Fox Business last October, he described the SEC’s treatment of digital assets as a “disaster” for the crypto industry. In December, Uyeda predicted eased cryptocurrency enforcement and greater clarity. New Administration, New Crypto Approach? Under Gensler’s regime, the SEC pursued several enforcement actions against high-profile crypto companies such as Ripple, Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken and also pushed a controversial crypto accounting policy. It’s unclear what will happen to these pending cases under the new Trump government or interim chair Uyeda. As ZyCrypto reported previously, pro-crypto SEC commissioners plan to dismiss non-fraud enforcement cases. Since being sworn in, Trump did not mention crypto on his first day as the 47th President of the United States. The omission of crypto-related actions disappointed fans who had anticipated Trump to create a presidential crypto council or announce plans for a national Bitcoin reserve. Nonetheless, the SEC is set to have a regulatory shift for crypto following Gensler’s exit.
