Elad Roisman, SEC Commissioner Is Leaving The Agency: Report

One of the two Republican SEC commissioners Elad Roisman will be stepping down from his role at the agency by the end of January 2022 as we are reading some more in our latest crypto news.

Elad Roisman is one of the five SEC commissioners and he often disagreed with the chairman’s stance on regulatory issues. Roisman who was one of the two Republican commissioners on the Securities and Exchange Commission announced he will resign from the agency by the end of January 2022. He also served as an acting chairman during President Trump’s final month in office and was a strong opponent of Chairman’s Gary Gensler’s policies, joining the fellow Republican commissioner Hester Peirce known as the Crypto Mom, in voting against the recent reforms to money market fund requirements, security-based swaps, and share repurchase disclosures.

Roisman hasn’t moved in lockstep with Peirce on the crypto questions like Safe Harbor’s proposal put forward a framework for the token projects to launch without registering as securities. For example, he joined Gensler and the other Democrat commissioners Caroline Crenshaw and Allison Herren Lee, in declining to approve the rule that will allow WisdomTree to list a BTC exchange-traded fund. Roisman agreed with Peirce that the agency should be more transparent about which crypto assets are considered securities or tradeable financial instruments. Crypto exchanges and other digital asset companies complained if they are unwittingly dealing in securities, the agency should tell them which ones.

Commissioner Roisman's work has benefited investors, the capital markets, the SEC, and our nation. I cannot overstate the privilege of serving alongside someone so humble, hard-working, patriotic, and principled. https://t.co/TjoKymy12U

— Hester Peirce (@HesterPeirce) December 20, 2021

Peirce and Roisman issued a statemetn about Coinschedule which is a UK-based website that listed token offerings without disclosing that individual projects paid to have their assets promoted. They agreed that this was in violation of the securities laws and wrote:

 “We nevertheless are disappointed that the Commission’s settlement with Coinschedule did not explain which digital assets touted by Coinschedule were securities, an omission which is symptomatic of our reluctance to provide additional guidance about how to determine whether a token is being sold as part of a securities offering or which tokens are securities.”

Roisman’s departure won’t have much of a bearing on the SEC’s stance towards crypto as the agency’s commissioners are aligned with Gensler’s agenda for the most part. However, Biden will have to nominate a Republican to fill Roisman’s seat.