The SEC will bolster its ranks by hiring Blockchain.com’s former global institutional-markets chief and a Washington, DC law-firm partner as its newest staff additions.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today announced a slate of new hires, bringing in professionals with extensive cryptocurrency and blockchain expertise.
A Friday notice from the SEC announced that Jamie Selway will become the agency’s director of trading and markets. From 2018 to 2019, Selway served as Blockchain.com’s global head of institutional markets.
Crypto-focused attorney Brian Daly, a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, is set to join the commission and lead its investment-management division.
Daly said he has always admired the SEC’s dedication to robust oversight, a stance he witnessed firsthand while guiding clients on compliance and offering investment-management feedback during agency rulemaking.
Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress are weighing a bill to define how much oversight the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission will hold over digital assets, even as the agency fills new staff roles. The House of Representatives plans to move the CLARITY Act to a floor vote in the near future.
On Thursday, the SEC revealed plans to retract several proposed rulemaking notices released between March 2022 and November 2023, including a number tied to crypto.
Under the draft digital-asset rules, the SEC planned to broaden its definition of “exchange” to cover decentralized-finance platforms and to impose tougher standards for safeguarding cryptocurrency holdings.
US Financial Regulators Remain Understaffed
As of June, the SEC still lacks one commissioner, even after the Senate confirmed Paul Atkins as chair in April. President Donald Trump has not yet nominated anyone for the empty seat. Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, whose term expired in June 2024, may remain until 2026, because commissioners can stay on for up to 18 months after their terms end.
Three seats remain empty atop the CFTC after former chair Rostin Behnam and commissioners Christy Goldsmith Romero and Summer Mersinger left their posts. Senate lawmakers are reviewing President Donald Trump’s pick of former commissioner Brian Quintenz to lead the agency, and as of Friday, the president has not put forward any additional nominees.
