The Securities and Exchange Commission will host its first-ever dedicated crypto trading roundtable on April 11, bringing together crypto industry leaders and traditional finance experts to help “restart” and reshape digital asset regulation.
The event, titled “Between a Block and a Hard Place,” is the first of a four-part series announced earlier in March. These talks were designed to establish clearer frameworks for crypto companies that have long operated in regulatory uncertainty.
The roundtable discussions aim to help the crypto industry “move toward crypto clarity for the benefit of the American public,” SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s recently formed Crypto Task Force, said Monday.
The event marks a pivot in the SEC’s approach following Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda’s January establishment of the Crypto Task Force, which came after years of what many in the industry described as regulatory uncertainty.
The trading-focused panel features senior executives from major crypto firms including Katherine Minarik, Chief Legal Officer at DeFi protocol developer Uniswap Labs; Austin Reid, Global Head of Revenue at institutional platform FalconX; Chelsea Pizzola, Associate General Counsel at market maker Cumberland DRW; and Gregory Tusar, VP of Institutional Product at Coinbase.
Traditional finance will be represented by New York Stock Exchange Chief Product Officer Jon Herrick and Healthy Markets Association CEO Tyler Gellasch, creating a balanced dialogue between established and emerging market participants.
Texture Capital, Urvin Finance, Goodwin Procter, and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business are also participating with expert panelists.
The roundtable will follow a structured format with opening remarks from SEC leadership, followed by a two-hour panel discussion where participants will explore potential regulatory pathways for current challenges they identify.
Notably, Cumberland DRW’s Pizzola recently submitted a comment letter to the SEC arguing that most non-security tokens shouldn’t be regulated as investment contracts, signaling the industry positions likely to emerge during the discussion.
The SEC’s “new beginning”
A “restart” to the commission’s approach toward crypto regulation signifies a “new beginning” for the industry, Peirce told attendees at last month’s inaugural introductory roundtable.
This recalibration aligns with the Trump administration’s pro-crypto initiatives, including recent clarification that crypto mining doesn’t violate securities laws and exploring frameworks for tokenized assets.
The April 11 session will run from 1:00-5:00 PM ET, with in-person and virtual attendance options. Three additional roundtables covering custody (April 25), asset tokenization (May 12), and decentralized finance (June 6) will follow.
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