SEC’s Crypto Task Force Hosts Roundtable on Financial Surveillance and Privacy
December 16, 2025
On December 15, 2025, the SEC’s Crypto Task Force hosted a
roundtable to address how to preserve
Americans’ privacy while protecting investors in the age of crypto assets. In his
remarks at the roundtable, SEC Chairman Paul
Atkins frames the issue primarily as achieving a balance between trusting Americans
to “manage their own affairs” and providing enough regulatory support so that the
federal government can counter potential national security threats posed by crypto
technology. In Mr. Atkins’s words:
On the one hand, the federal government has an obligation
to protect Americans from national security interests and threats, including
through measures such as the Bank Secrecy Act, which Treasury and other
agencies use to deter illicit finance. On the other hand, being free to
conduct one’s affairs, including financial affairs, free from government and
other surveillance is a core American value.
Also see the remarks made by SEC Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda at the roundtable.