The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday announced the staff of the
“The Crypto Task Force exhibits deep expertise and an enthusiastic commitment to identifying — with the help of other talented staff across the Commission and interested members of the public — workable solutions to difficult crypto regulatory problems,” Peirce said in a statement.
Peirce is the longest serving commissioner at the SEC, having been appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term in 2018 and was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote for a second term in 2020. Dubbed
“During the past several years, enforcement cases have been used as a way to make regulatory policy; that is very atypical,”
Richard Gabbert will serve as chief of staff. He joined the SEC nearly 14 years ago and most recently served as counsel to Peirce. Taylor Asher will serve as chief policy advisor. Asher joined the SEC in 2023 as “policy advisor and confidential assistant” to then-SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda, according to Asher’s LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was an intern for three Republican lawmakers and a personal aide to Sen. Bill Hagerty, R.-Tenn.
Gabbert and Asher were included in the initial announcement following the creation of the task force days after Trump was sworn into office. Trump appointed
Michael Selig will join as chief counsel. Selig most recently a partner at the New York-based law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Early in his career, Selig did a stint in the office of the commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Sumeera Younis will serve as chief of operations. Younis has been at the SEC for over nine years and most recently served as policy counsel for Peirce.
President Trump has made cryptocurrency a priority in his second term, signing an executive order days after taking the oath of office to form a crypto working group led by White House Crypto Czar David Sacks. The group is tasked with crafting an outline for the development and use of cryptocurrencies in the U.S.
The president called for the creation of a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in the executive order and on Sunday announced it would include five different cryptocurrencies, which drew
Several senior advisors were also named in the announcement including Landon Zinda who served as policy counsel at Coin Center since 2023. Before that, he was counsel for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs focused on fintech and cryptocurrency. He also worked for the Heritage Foundation, the group behind
Donald Battle will also serve as a senior advisor. Battle joined the SEC’s crypto asset and cyber unit in 2022 and is the assistant director of the data science group. Before joining the SEC, Battle was a senior virtual currency enforcement officer at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Bernard Nolan will serve as senior advisor. Nolan has been at the SEC for over nine years most recently as senior special counsel for blockchain, crypto assets and tokenization in the division of investment management.
Frank Sensebrenner will also serve as senior advisor. He has been at the SEC for nearly four years, most recently as a senior specialized examiner in Chicago. Before that, Sensebrenner spent six years at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Robert Teply was also tapped as a senior advisor. Teply has been at the SEC for nearly 13 years, most recently serving as associate general counsel.
Other senior advisors include Laura Powell, Veronica Reynolds, Christopher Rice, Mark Sater, and Andrew Schoeffler.