Updated Mar 4, 2025 1:16 AM UTC Published Mar 3, 2025 10:40 PM UTC
The new chief counsel for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) newly formed cryptocurrency task force is a lawyer who specializes in cryptocurrencies.
Mike Selig, who was named the task force’s chief legal counsel in an SEC announcement Monday, previously worked as a partner at the New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he worked in the firm’s crypto practice. Before joining Willkie, Selig interned at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
In a post on Monday X, former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, affectionately known to many in the industry as “CryptoDad,” congratulated Selig on his appointment. Giancarlo is also a senior associate at Wilkie Farr, where he leads the firm’s Digital Works practice.
“I am proud and pleased that my protégé, former CFTC intern and Willkie partner Mike Selig, has been appointed chief counsel to the SEC’s new cryptocurrency task force,” Giancarlo wrote.
Last October, Selig published an op-ed for CoinDesk outlining his ideas for how the SEC could move beyond the so-called “coercive regulation” the agency employed under former Chairman Gary Gensler and instead create a regulatory environment that fosters innovation. Some of Selig’s proposals — including repealing the controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 and withdrawing from a number of lawsuits — have already been implemented by the new cryptocurrency task force.
Selig is one of 14 hires named in Monday’s announcement. His colleagues include several crypto industry professionals — Landon Zinda, former policy director at crypto think tank Coin Center, and Veronica Reynolds, a former attorney at Baker Hostetler LLP who focuses on NFTs and the legal aspects of the metaverse, both of whom will serve as senior advisers to the task force and as SEC staffers. Zinda’s appointment to the task force was announced in February.
“The Cryptocurrency Task Force demonstrates deep understanding and enthusiasm for finding — together with other talented Commission staff and stakeholders — effective solutions to complex cryptocurrency regulatory issues,” Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the task force, said in a statement Monday.
On March 21, the task force will hold its first roundtable discussion, titled “How We Got Here and How We Get Out of It – Defining the Status of Security,” as part of an upcoming series of discussions on cryptocurrency regulation.
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