Caroline Crenshaw has left the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), leaving the agency solely comprising Republicans. As a result, nothing stands in the way of pro-crypto rulemaking.
Republicans in Washington have generally been friendlier toward the crypto industry than their Democratic counterparts. The SEC made a 180-degree turn last year, after President Donald Trump entered office and Congress moved on landmark crypto legislation.
Now, just one week into 2026, the Senate is set for a markup vote on the crypto market structure bill — and there is an entirely Republican SEC.
The commission is still constrained by how it makes crypto regulations. Notice-and-comment rulemaking has certain processes that must be observed, lest the SEC risk legal action in the future.
But still, observers expect another banner year for crypto from the SEC.
“Highly unusual” Republican SEC set for banner year
Crenshaw was the last remaining crypto-skeptic commissioner left at the SEC, issuing a dissent on the commission decision to allow Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January 2024. She said the decision “put us on a wayward path that could further sacrifice investor protection.”
The Senate Banking Committee canceled a vote to renominate Crenshaw in December 2025. This reportedly came after intense lobbying from the crypto industry, which wanted to see the crypto-skeptic commissioner removed.
When operating at a full complement, the SEC has five commissioners. As of publishing time, it has three, all of whom are Republican: Chair Paul Atkins, Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda.
By law, the SEC is a bipartisan agency, meaning that at least two of the commissioners must be from another party. The majority partisanship of the agency often reflects whoever is holding office in the White House.
Carol Goforth, distinguished professor and the Wylie H. Davis Centennial Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) School of Law, described the situation as “highly unusual.”
She told Cointelegraph that she could find “no example of a situation where all the sitting SEC commissioners were from a single party. In fact, the only examples for any bipartisan agency with members from a single party that I found all involve the current [Trump] administration.”
“Usually,” she said, “there is slow and steady turnover in these positions.” Commissioners serve five-year terms, and chairs generally resign when there is a change in administration. This has “usually worked fairly consistently to preserve the bipartisan nature of these agencies.”
Past administrations even considered minority-party commissioners advantageous, according to Aaron Brogan, founder of Brogan Law — a law firm specializing in crypto and emerging tech.
He told Cointelegraph that the administration could appoint more ideologically aligned opposition commissioners that would “extend policy priorities into the next administration, when, typically, minority commissioners would stay on in the new majority for some time.”
“But the Trump administration is a new paradigm,” Brogan said.
“While I have heard rumors that there are stakeholders internally pushing for minority commissioner appointments, it could certainly extend indefinitely.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the commission will make a run on new crypto rules. As Goforth noted, the Federal Administrative Procedures Act requires public notice, a period for comment and detailed consideration of said comments. The agency has to explain its reasoning as well as include “specific information about the costs and benefits of the proposed regulation.”
Rules that fail to adhere to these requirements can end up getting overturned in court, particularly if there’s a failure to consider relevant factors or the rule is found to be outside of the agency’s scope.
But even with these rules in place, the SEC is set to make major changes, according to Brogan.
“2026 will be a massive year at the SEC. I expect real, fleshed out, exemptive relief through notice-and-comment rulemaking.”
Republicans dominate federal agencies
The SEC is not the only federal regulatory agency run solely by Republicans. Since Sept. 3, 2025, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been run by a single commissioner. First, it was Acting Chair Caroline Pham, a Republican.
On Dec. 22, 2025, after a lengthy nominations process, the Senate confirmed the Trump administration’s pick of Michael Selig, who replaced Pham as chair. This has left the CFTC with one Republican commissioner.
Related: CFTC changes guard as Selig takes reins, Pham departs
Goforth noted that “since there are no quorum requirements” for the CFTC, it can “continue to operate with a single commissioner, and there are no provisions or procedures for forcing a president to nominate additional commissioners.”
There’s a similar situation at the Federal Trade Commission, where Trump fired Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter in March 2025, as her continued service was “inconsistent with [the] Administration’s priorities.”
Slaughter sued Trump and the remaining three commissioners, arguing that Trump failed to offer a statutory cause for her removal. On Dec. 8, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case Trump v. Slaughter, and now, per Goforth, “there are signs that a majority could side with President Trump, even though that would mean overruling an earlier precedent.”
Trump also fired three Democratic commissioners at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The decision was blocked by the US District Court for Maryland on June 13, 2025, in the case Trump v. Boyle, but the Supreme Court stayed the order on July 23. This allowed the Trump administration to continue with the dismissals as they’re challenged in court. As of the beginning of 2026, the CPSC has one commissioner, Republican Acting Chair Peter Feldman.
Goforth said she would call this an “unprecedented effort at concentrating control over administrative agencies by this president.”
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Elena Kagan told Solicitor General John Sauer in arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, “The result of what you want is that the president is going to have massive, unchecked, uncontrolled power.”
In that case, Department of Justice lawyers representing the president have leaned on unitary executive theory to bolster their arguments. This is a conservative legal theory positing that the president has sole authority over all aspects of the executive branch, including federal agencies.
Amit Agarwal, a special counsel for the nonprofit Protect Democracy arguing on behalf of Slaughter, said that allowing the president to replace the heads of federal agencies at whim means “everything is on the chopping block.”
The SEC will still have to abide by rule-making procedures as it moves ahead on crypto laws in the next year. But it does so on the background of unprecedented single-party support.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
