Who Will Police Your Crypto at the SEC? Trump Just Picked Hester Peirce’s Replacement

President Donald Trump has nominated Steven Levine to replace Hester Peirce at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Republican lawyer would serve a term ending June 5, 2030.

Peirce, widely known as “Crypto Mom,” led the SEC’s Crypto Task Force before leaving the agency on October 2. Levine has said little publicly about crypto regulation.

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JUST IN: The White House nominations list is out. It names Nathan Anonick and Matthew Rowland for the CFTC, and Kristin N. Johnson and Steven Levine for the SEC. Levine would take Hester Peirce's seat. pic.twitter.com/8fc1KmWGFR

— BeInCrypto (@beincrypto) November 13, 2026

Steven Levine’s Road Runs Through Uyeda’s Office

Without public statements to go on, the SEC nominee’s career is the clearest record of his work.

• Associate in the asset management group at law firm K&L Gates.
• Joined the SEC in 2020 as senior counsel in the Division of Investment Management.
• Counsel to Commissioner Mark Uyeda, then deputy chief of staff when Uyeda became acting chair in 2025.
• General counsel at the White House Council of Economic Advisers from February 2025.
• Senior counselor to the Labor Secretary since November 2026, according to his LinkedIn.

His crypto work appears in SEC meeting records. In December 2023, Levine met Grayscale and Invesco-Galaxy about their spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded product (ETP) applications.

Two months later, he joined Uyeda in a meeting with crypto investor Paradigm on SEC custody and exchange rule proposals.

These meetings show Levine handled crypto files. The memos record the topics discussed, without his positions.

A Familiar CFTC Voice Heads to the SEC

Meanwhile, Levine is among 4 SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) nominees sent to the Senate November 12. The list also names Democrat Kristin Johnson for the SEC seat formerly held by Caroline Crenshaw.

President Joe Biden nominated Johnson to the CFTC, where she served from 2022 until September 2025.

In her farewell speech, she warned that prediction markets lacked guardrails and that regulators had limited visibility into them.

She also voiced serious concern about interference in the work of independent agencies. At the same event, she said the CFTC likely needed both Democratic and Republican commissioners.

Next, all 4 nominations go to Senate committees, with the Banking Committee reviewing Levine and Johnson. Nominations still pending when the current Congress ends on January 3 are returned to the president.

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