Hester Peirce Defends Crypto Privacy, Blasts Financial Surveillance Laws

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, known as “Crypto Mom,” delivered a bold defense of financial privacy in the digital age, urging regulators to rethink outdated surveillance rules like the 55-year-old Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

She warned that today’s surveillance framework turns financial institutions into “deputized” watchdogs, citing over 25 million transaction reports filed in 2024 alone.

Peirce compared crypto privacy to using cash in the past, and argued that immutable blockchain protocols cannot and should not be forced into the mold of legacy financial regulation.

She also touched on the Tornado Cash case, where the fate of a developer is at stake simply for creating a neutral protocol. For Peirce, this is a test of how far regulators will go.

Addressing DeFi regulation, she harshly criticized the now-repealed IRS broker rule as an attempt to “spy on users.” The repeal, signed by President Trump in April, marked a victory for privacy advocates.

In a major policy reveal, she introduced the SEC’s “Project Crypto”, a modernization effort aimed at adapting securities laws for tokenized assets and blockchain markets. SEC Chair Paul Atkins expressed alignment, signaling bipartisan momentum.

Peirce’s remarks were widely praised as one of the strongest articulations of crypto rights and financial liberty ever made by a regulator.