SEC Under Fire: Waters Demands Urgent Crypto Oversight by 2025
The Securities and Exchange Commission is facing mounting pressure as Representative Maxine Waters demands concrete regulatory action on cryptocurrencies by 2025.
The Regulatory Countdown Begins
Waters' call isn't a suggestion—it's a deadline. The financial services committee chair wants clear rules of the road established before another bull run leaves regulators scrambling. Her message cuts through the bureaucratic fog: figure it out, or get left behind.
Why 2025 Matters Now
That date isn't arbitrary. It represents the next likely inflection point for institutional adoption. Without a framework, Waters argues, the U.S. risks ceding its financial leadership—letting innovation flow to jurisdictions with clearer, if not necessarily better, rules. It's a classic Washington move: create urgency by highlighting a future failure.
The SEC's Tightrope Walk
The agency must now balance protecting investors with fostering innovation, a task made harder by rapidly evolving technology. Enforcement actions alone won't suffice. The market needs predictability—something Wall Street loves but crypto has notoriously lacked. Expect heated debates over what constitutes a security versus a commodity, a line that seems to blur with every new token launch.
The Industry's Mixed Reaction
Some crypto executives welcome the clarity, tired of operating in a legal gray area. Others see it as the first step toward stifling regulation, a move that could squash the very decentralization that makes the technology revolutionary. The loudest complaints will likely come from those who've built fortunes in the regulatory wild west.
The Bottom Line for Investors
Regulatory certainty typically boosts mainstream adoption and institutional money. A clear 2025 framework could legitimize the asset class for skeptical portfolio managers still waiting on the sidelines. But it also means the end of the 'anything goes' era—and potentially lower margins for exchanges that profit from regulatory ambiguity.
Waters' demand forces the SEC's hand. The clock is ticking toward 2025, and the outcome will determine whether America shapes the future of finance or merely audits it from the sidelines—another case of regulators showing up after the party to count the empty bottles.
Waters Demands Accountability
“Chair Gensler testified before the Committee twice during his first year,” she wrote. “Although having a clear duty to supervise the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Committee has not held any hearing with Chairman Atkins, despite the SEC’s quick, large, and questionable policy changes during the TRUMP Administration.” Waters enumerated 10 points that she believed the oversight hearing should address, including the dropping of crypto enforcement actions, the Commission’s independence and politicization, and the deterioration of market surveillance.
Source: Steel Eye“Questionable Policy Changes” Raise Concerns
She they “has terminated or stayed major enforcement actions against multiple crypto companies and individuals that had been credibly accused of major violations of our securities laws, including Coinbase, Binance, and Justin Sun,” and she added: “Some of the defendants in these cases had even announced that they had terminated enforcement actions before the Commission had actually taken the vote.” Waters argued that the FSC should examine the agency closely if it is to understand “how it plans to deter fraud and manipulation.
SEC’s Crypto Shift
Watersto French Hill, a Trump administration appointee, who became the new chair after Gary Gensler in April. During his time, the SEC has been more crypto-friendly, with the dropping of lawsuits and investigations, easing of rules for crypto exchange-traded funds, and a positive attitude towards crypto regulation via Project Crypto. It is only a fraction of the time when Waters has denounced the crypto industry and the Republican Party’s stance towards it. In October, she voiced her indignation at the pardon of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao.
