As the Trump administration pushes lawmakers and regulators to develop clear regulatory frameworks, a former Chainlink executive has joined the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Crypto Task Force as its new legal chief.
SEC Appoints New Legal Advisor to the Crypto Task Force
Chainlink’s social media on Monday announced Taylor Lindman’s departure from the company to join the SEC’s Crypto Task Force as Chief Counsel. The director spent five years at Chainlink Labs, where he held several senior legal positions, including Deputy General Counsel.
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The former Chainlink executive will replace Michael Selig, who was appointed chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in December 2025. He will serve as the Crypto Task Force’s new senior legal advisor, ensuring compliance, risk management and guiding legal interpretation.
Following the departure of Gary Gensler, former SEC Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda created the Crypto Task Force to overhaul the agency’s approach to digital assets and develop a clear, comprehensive regulatory framework.
Since its launch, the task force has held multiple roundtable events to engage with industry leaders and discuss various aspects of industry regulation, including tokenization, DeFi, financial supervision and privacy.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who also leads the task force, confirmed the news, in which Lindman is welcomed in an X-post. “Welcome to our new Chief Counsel of the Crypto Task Force, Taylor Lindman, who joined the SEC today. I predict great things!” the message reads.
SEC to advance regulation of digital assets
Last week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins talked about how the agency plans to advance the regulation of digital assets this year. Speaking at ETH Denver alongside Commissioner Peirce, Atkins confirmed that the Commission would move forward with its regulatory work through Project Crypto, which was recently relaunched as a joint initiative with the CFTC.
He noted that the two Commissions are “planning big things together – harmonization, joint regulation – a common, coordinated approach that is unlike anything seen before in these two often sparring agencies.”
As reported by Bitcoinist, the sister agencies worked together to promote a clear taxonomy of crypto assets, clarify jurisdictional boundaries, remove duplicative compliance requirements, and reduce regulatory fragmentation.
In addition, he announced that the agency will assess multiple initiatives in the coming months, including a Commission framework “to explain how we think about crypto assets subject to an investment contract.”
In addition, they will consider an innovation exemption for companies to facilitate limited trading of certain tokenized securities on new platforms; no-action letters and waiver orders to provide additional clarity; regulations on the custody of unsecured digital assets, such as payment stablecoins, by broker-dealers; and a modernization of regulations for transfer agents, which will “accommodate the role that blockchain can play in record keeping.”
Earlier this month, Atkins also outlined the SEC’s plan to develop formal token classification guidelines. During a House Financial Services Committee hearing, the chairman noted that regulatory clarity for crypto assets was “long overdue,” emphasizing that a comprehensive federal framework, such as the Market Structure Act, would be necessary to provide long-lasting regulations that cannot be easily changed.
“Under the leadership of Commissioner Hester Peirce of our Crypto Task Force, the SEC staff has provided more clarity in the past year than in the previous decade, but there is no action we can take that will better future-proof our rulebook than impartial market structure legislation,” he stated.
The total crypto market capitalization sits at $2.2 trillion on the one-week chart. Source: TOTAL on TradingView
Featured image from NBC News, chart from TradingView.com
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