SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce says meme coins like TRUMP and MELANIA may not fall under the agency’s regulation as they do not necessarily meet the criteria for securities.
Peirce’s stance contradicts former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who previously argued that most cryptocurrencies, including memecoins, are securities.
The SEC’s new crypto task force, led by Peirce, aims to reclassify digital assets to distinguish between securities and non-securities, bringing regulatory clarity.
Hester Peirce, head of the newly crypto task force at the Securities and Exchange Commission (), said on Tuesday that meme coins such as TRUMP and MELANIA may not be classified as securities, meaning they could fall outside the agency’s jurisdiction.
Peirce, often called “Crypto Mom” for her support of the digital asset industry, dismissed the idea that all meme coins automatically qualify as securities — contradicting former SEC Chair ’s broad stance on crypto regulation.
Gensler’s SEC Labeled Most Cryptos as Securities
During his tenure under the Biden administration, Gensler asserted that the majority of cryptocurrencies should be classified as securities and regulated accordingly. He included meme coins in this category, arguing that they met the legal definition of investment contracts.
However, in an with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Peirce pushed back, stating that while many meme coins are in circulation, some of them do not meet the criteria required to be classified as securities.
“There are lots of people introducing meme coins right now, [and] facts and circumstances matter. But many of the meme coins that are out there probably do not have a home in the SEC under our current set of regulations,” she said.
Meanwhile, the crypto market has seen a wave of celebrity-backed meme coins, with figures like Caitlyn Jenner, Iggy Azalea, and Andrew Tate launching their own tokens last year. However, the hype soon faded, and many of these coins disappeared from the spotlight. Blockchain platforms like Pump.Fun allowed these celebrities to create meme coins without coding knowledge, leading to an explosion of new tokens.
While the trend seemed to slow down after Bitcoin surged past $100,000 in November, it was revived in January when Donald Trump and Melania Trump launched their first-ever meme coins, bringing fresh attention to the space.
SEC’s New Task Force to Reassess Crypto Classifications
Peirce’s comments on meme coins come shortly after she revealed that the SEC’s newly established crypto task force will focus on properly classifying digital assets to determine which should be considered non-securities and which fall under SEC regulation.
According to Peirce, the initiative aims to provide much-needed regulatory clarity for industry players looking to operate in the US market.
While meme coins remain in regulatory limbo, some cryptocurrencies have already been declared non-securities. Both Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP have received this classification. Gensler, despite his attempts to categorize XRP as a security, failed when Judge Analisa Torres ruled in 2023 that XRP does not meet the legal definition of a security.
During his time in office, Gensler repeatedly that Bitcoin does not fall under securities laws but insisted that most other cryptocurrencies exhibited characteristics of securities.
With Peirce now leading the charge, the crypto industry is watching closely to see whether her approach will bring regulatory clarity — or simply add another layer to the ongoing debate over crypto classification in the US.