SEC Commissioner Uyeda: Dropped Crypto Cases Were About Courtroom Credibility
Mark Uyeda, who ran the SEC for four months last year, says litigation against digital-asset firms was abandoned to avoid arguing contradictory legal positions before judges.
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Mark Uyeda, a current SEC commissioner who briefly served as acting chair, said the agency's decision in early 2025 to drop civil enforcement actions against cryptocurrency companies stemmed from a desire to avoid embarrassing courtroom contradictions.
Speaking on a panel at the Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy’s Financial Markets Quality Conference on Wednesday, Uyeda explained that the commission was preparing a “180-degree change” in its approach to crypto rulemaking. Continuing to litigate cases filed under the prior administration would have forced SEC lawyers to defend positions the agency was about to abandon, he argued.
“I’m not about to have our litigators, even though they’re having cases that were authorized under the prior administration, stand up in court and have a commission interpretation be issued that is a 180-degree change from what they’d been arguing for that court,” Uyeda said. “I think that hurts [our] credibility as an agency.”
Uyeda, who led the SEC from January to April 2025, said there were “significant concerns” that many of the crypto cases were not clearly justified under existing law. Dropping them was a way to preserve the agency's standing with the judiciary, he said.
During that period, the SEC moved to dismiss cases against Kraken, Ripple Labs, Coinbase and other firms. Critics at the time characterized the moves as political payback for the industry's support of Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Trump had promised to fire former SEC Chair Gary Gensler—under whom most of those lawsuits were initiated—on his first day in office. Gensler resigned the day Trump was inaugurated.
Uyeda has been an SEC commissioner since 2022 and currently serves alongside Chair Paul Atkins and Commissioner Hester Peirce. Peirce is expected to step down in November, which would leave the commission with only two of its five seats filled. Trump has yet to announce any nominees to fill the vacancies, according to comments Uyeda made at the conference.
The panel appearance marked a rare public explanation from Uyeda, who has largely kept a low profile since returning to his commissioner seat after Atkins's confirmation.
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