Staff of SEC’s Crypto Task Force Includes Former Big-Law Crypto Lawyer

The new chief counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) freshly-created Crypto Task Force is a crypto lawyer.

Mike Selig, who was named chief counsel of the duty drive in a Monday announcement from the SEC, was beforehand a New York-based companion at white-shoe worldwide regulation agency Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the place he was a member of the agency’s crypto follow. Before becoming a member of Willkie, Selig interned for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In a Monday X publish, former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, affectionately often known as “CryptoDad” by many within the business, congratulated Selig on his appointment. Giancarlo can be senior counsel at Wilkie Farr, the place he leads the agency’s Digital Works follow.

“Proud and excited for my protege, former CFTC intern and Willkie partner Mike Selig to be named chief counsel to the new SEC Crypto Task Force,” Giancarlo wrote.

Last October, Selig wrote an op-ed for CoinDesk laying out his ideas for the way the SEC may transfer away from the so-called “regulation by enforcement” the company practiced below former Chair Gary Gensler and as a substitute create a regulatory atmosphere that encourages innovation. Several of Selig’s ideas — together with rescinding the controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 and withdrawing from sure lawsuits – have already been applied by the brand new Crypto Task Force.

Selig was one of 14 workers members named within the Monday announcement. His colleagues embrace a number of crypto business natives — Landon Zinda, former coverage director at crypto assume tank Coin Center, and Veronica Reynolds, a former lawyer at Baker Hostetler LLP targeted on NFTs and metaverse-related authorized points, each of whom will function senior advisors to the duty drive — in addition to profession SEC workers. Zinda’s appointment to the duty drive was introduced in February.

“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,” Commissioner Hester Peirce, the chief of the duty drive, mentioned in a Monday assertion.

On March 21, the duty drive will host its first roundtable dialogue, titled “How We Got Here and How We Get Out – Defining Security Status” in an upcoming collection on crypto regulation.