SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, who spent 2025 as the lone Democrat on what is supposed to be a five-member bipartisan panel, announced on January 2 her exit from the agency at the end of the 18-month period following the technical expiration of her term in June 2024. SEC commissioners can remain in their post for an additional 18 months.
Caroline Crenshaw
Crenshaw’s departure leaves the Securities and Exchange Commission with three Republican appointees, all of whom are known for their deregulatory and cryptocurrency-friendly stances: Chair Paul Atkins and Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda.
Under federal law, no more than three commissioners may belong to the same political party, meaning the White House and Senate must agree on two non-Republican nominees before the commission’s seats can be filled. The fifth spot on the commission has remained vacant since Jaime Lizárraga, a Democrat, resigned on January 17, 2025.
In a joint statement issued Friday, Atkins, Peirce and Uyeda praised Crenshaw’s tenure, citing her “more than a decade of distinguished service” and calling her “a steadfast advocate for the agency’s mission.”
Crenshaw joined the SEC in 2013 and was nominated by President Donald Trump during his first term to serve as a commissioner, taking office in August 2020. When former President Joe Biden renominated her in 2024, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs cancelled its vote on her renomination, effectively ending her chance at a second term.
Cryptocurrency industry groups and digital asset advocates had lobbied hard against Crenshaw’s reappointment, pointing to her opposition to recent pro-crypto policy decisions and enforcement settlements.
In the final part of her term, Crenshaw was the commission’s most vocal skeptic of digital assets and market deregulation. She dissented from the SEC’s approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, calling the move “unsound and ahistorical” and warning that it could “further sacrifice investor protection.”
Crenshaw also objected to the SEC’s shifting enforcement approach, including its settlement with Ripple Labs, and repeatedly argued that easing market rules would undermine investor protections that have defined U.S. public markets for decades.
Her exit comes as the SEC is composing new rules for digital assets, private markets and disclosures, along with establishing enforcement priorities for tokenization, trading platforms and retail access to complex strategies. The agency has already outlined its enforcement priorities for 2026, emphasizing fiduciary standards and complex investment products , among other focus areas. The commission’s three Republicans now have a rare opportunity to shape the regulatory and compliance landscape without the dissenting voice of a fellow commissioner.