SECs Peirce: The government must protect the crypto privacy, not limit it

Hester Peirce, AKA ‘Crypto Mom’, made the comments in a speech about ‘Financial privacy in the digital age’ on the Science of Blockchain conference on Monday.

Peirce used a “peanut butter and watermelon” anecdote illustrate The value of disinter mediation or the removal of intermediaries from processes, in this case finance.

The Pro-Crypto commissioner was critical of financial supervision and the banking system, which states that the 55-year-old Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) “has deputy US financial institutions as de facto law enforcement researchers”.

A security state

The current financial system is a security state. In 2024, 324,000 financial institutions submitted more than 25 million transaction reports, including 4.7 million ‘suspicious activity reports’.

In the meantime, third -party doctrine enables the government to access financial data without warrants, and the consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) of the SEC follows the trading activity of each investor without suspicion of misconduct.

Privacy protection of crypto technologies such as zero knowledge destinations, mixers and privacy pools can reduce dependence on intermediaries, while Defi-Protocols offer transparent, equal access without discrimination, she said.

“A bank that may not borrow from certain types of people makes way for a Defi protocol so that everyone can borrow transparent terms on the same, publicly transparent terms.”

Thankful for SEC Commissioner @Hesterpeirce To bring attention to the need to defend Americans’ right to financial privacy and inclusive @katie_haunThe argument that our financial data is one of the most sensitive personal information that we produce.

This is a problem that is too often overlooked … pic.twitter.com/7N7IPU5FWF

– Haun Ventures (@haunventures) August 4, 2025

Peirce has made various policy recommendations to protect Americans’s right to become self-confident crypto assets, not to prosecute open-source privacy software and prevent intermediaries in peer-to-peer transactions.

“We should not ask colleagues with each other, where there is no intermediary, to collect and report information about each other. This would be our deputies to investigate our neighbors – a practice against a free society.”

SEC launches ‘Project Crypto’

“We will ensure that the next chapter of financial innovation is written here in America,” said SEC chairman Paul Atkins on Monday.

The comments came when Atkins ‘Project Crypto’ revealed, a broad initiative to modernize the outdated securities of the country “to enable America’s financial markets to move.”

Atkins said The SEC will revise ‘outdated rules’ that no longer apply to the crypto sector and possibly withdraw to support the development of Tokenized assets and emerging financial models.

We will ensure that the next chapter of financial innovation is written here in America.

View highlights of my speech launch project Crypto @A1policy. pic.twitter.com/euqy9sampt

– Paul Atkins (@secpaulsatkins) August 4, 2025

In the meantime, the White House is also preparing an executive order that banks will block crypto investors and companies, which reverses discrimination from the Biden era.