SEC Commissioner Peirce Wants Your Financial Privacy Back-And She’s Not Sorry!

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Key Takeaways

SEC’s Hester Peirce has taken a sledgehammer to centralized third parties and regulatory frameworks, including the Bank Secrecy Act, for their delightful little side effect of ‘unwarranted financial surveillance.’

So, U.S. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has decided to throw her hat in the ring for financial privacy tech, because who doesn’t love a little blockchain and crypto drama? In a statement on August 4th, Peirce pointed out that centralized regulators like the SEC are basically the overprotective parents of the financial world, terrified of losing control of user data to those pesky bad actors. 🙄

But wait! She’s not just here to complain; she’s urging regulators to embrace privacy tools so that good citizens can live their lives without being watched like a hawk. 🦅

“Rather than something to be feared, we should embrace these tools’ ability to help humanity live freer lives without unwarranted financial surveillance.”

She added, because why not?

“People use these tools for bad purposes, too, but treating technology as the villain will impinge on legitimate users’ privacy.”

Call for review of the Bank Secrecy Act

Peirce also took a swing at the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), which is like that overly strict teacher who just wants to curb money laundering but ends up giving everyone detention. She pointed out that the high cost of compliance and reporting users’ financial transactions is a bit much, and maybe it’s time for a little BSA makeover. 💅

“Questions about the cost, usefulness, and privacy implications of the BSA make reforming the BSA a timely topic.”

In her grand finale, she concluded that we need to make sure people can communicate and share value privately, like it’s 1776 and we’re all just passing around physical coins. 🪙

“We should take concrete steps to protect people’s ability not only to communicate privately, but to transfer value privately, as they could have done with physical coins in the days in which the Fourth Amendment was crafted.”

As expected, several crypto leaders and advocacy groups are nodding along like they just heard the best gossip.

Coinbase’s Legal Chief Paul Grewal is particularly riled up about the KYC (know your customer) requirement under the BSA. He stated,

“Governments are unnecessarily forcing companies to collect and transfer vast sums of sensitive customer data, and the customers hate it.”

Coinbase’s CEO jumped on the bandwagon, adding that the BSA is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole-designed for the paper-based era, not our shiny digital world.

Peter Van Valkenburgh, Executive Director at advocacy group Coin Center, chimed in, saying that most federal laws are being abused at the expense of legitimate users. Because, of course, that’s how it always goes. 🙃

Is privacy a crime?

And now, the plot thickens! The debate is heating up over the ongoing prosecution of developers of privacy tech and crypto mixers like Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash.

Should regulators go after the bad actors using privacy tech or the developers of the platform? Is privacy a crime? Well, these are the burning questions lighting up Crypto Twitter after Samourai Wallet founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill decided to plead guilty last week. 🔥

The outcome of the ongoing trial of Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm will help answer these oh-so-important questions.

Will the renewed pushback from the agency and other crypto leaders actually influence the legal outcome? Stay tuned, folks! 🎬

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2025-08-06 09:21