'Crypto Mom' Hester Peirce to Leave SEC for Regent Law Faculty

Hester Peirce is leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The agency’s most persistent crypto advocate — known across digital-asset markets as “Crypto Mom” — will join Regent University School of Law as an associate professor in November 2026. Her eight-year run spanned two administrations and a wholesale shift in how Washington regulates digital assets.

Peirce was sworn in on 11 January 2018 after President Trump nominated her to the commission. Her second five-year term expired in June 2025; she has been serving in a holdover capacity since, a provision that lets commissioners stay up to 18 months past their term. The November exit lands roughly 17 months after that expiry.

The university confirmed the move alongside the appointment of Gregory F. Jacob — a former US Solicitor of Labor who argued before the Supreme Court and practiced at O’Melveny & Myers — as senior associate dean at Regent Law, a Christian university in Virginia Beach.

“Greg Jacob and Hester Peirce have served at the highest levels of law, government, and public life. Their decision to join Regent Law full time is a remarkable blessing for our students,” said Dean S. Ernie Walton.

Peirce’s approach to crypto regulation has been consistent since her earliest days at the commission. “All I’m asking is that we have an innovation policy that allows people to innovate and try new things,” she told crypto.news.

That stance put her at odds with former Chair Gary Gensler throughout his 2021–2025 tenure. Peirce publicly dissented from enforcement actions against Coinbase, Ripple Labs, and other crypto firms, arguing the commission was making law through litigation instead of writing clear rules.

She proposed a “Safe Harbor” that would have given token issuers three years to achieve sufficient decentralisation before securities laws applied. The idea drew industry backing but never reached a commission vote. She also opposed SEC rejections of spot-Bitcoin exchange-traded product applications — a stance the agency abandoned in early 2024 after a federal court ruled against it in the Grayscale case.

In January 2025, Acting Chair Mark Uyeda named Peirce to run the newly created Crypto Task Force, signalling a shift from enforcement toward rulemaking.

“I look forward to the efforts of Commissioner Peirce to lead regulatory policy on crypto, which involves multiple SEC divisions and offices,” Uyeda said.

Under Peirce and current Chair Paul Atkins, the task force has pushed forward work on stablecoin frameworks, tokenised securities, and pathways for exchange registration.

Industry lawyers and lobbyists are now asking whether that momentum survives her departure.

The commission will drop to three members — the minimum for a quorum — when Peirce departs. Democrat Caroline Crenshaw left in January 2026. The remaining body would be Atkins, Uyeda, and Democrat Jaime Lizárraga. Returning to a full five-commissioner slate would require two White House nominations and Senate confirmations, a process that may not wrap up until 2027. No nominees have been put forward.

The move mirrors Gensler’s post-SEC path: he returned to MIT Sloan as a professor after stepping down in 2025. But the industry’s reaction to the two exits could hardly be more different. Gensler’s departure was met with relief in crypto circles. Peirce’s is being read as the loss of a guardrail at a moment when the regulatory framework for digital assets is unfinished.