Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call
- Hester Peirce, the so-called crypto mom, said digital assets don't need a new watchdog.
- The SEC commissioner said the financial regulatory system is already so "fragmented."
- The comments followed a Coinbase proposal to appoint crypto oversight to a single federal regulator.
US Securities and Exchange Commissioner Hester Peirce isn't a fan of adding another government regulator to oversee cryptocurrencies.
In an interview with Bloomberg Television's Alix Steel, Peirce said she doesn't think a new watchdog for the asset class would be necessary because there are already so many financial regulators.
"We have such a fragmented regulatory system for financial products and services generally that I don't know that adding another regulator would be my top preference," said Peirce, who has been affectionately dubbed the "crypto mom" by digital token fans.
Peirce didn't mention Coinbase by name in the interview, though last month the crypto exchange made the suggestion to assign oversight of digital asset markets to a single federal regulator. According to Coinbase, the proposal did not express a preference for creating a new agency or designating a legacy one, such as the SEC.
In the past, Peirce has decried the SEC's lack of a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, saying she's been asking for one for years.
"I think this is really becoming a huge barrier to this industry being able to develop in a way that's safe, but also in a way that allows innovation to happen," she previously told Yahoo Finance Live.
The US has long been grappling with how to deal with cryptocurrencies, leaving the market to guess how to navigate the new asset class. Some financial advisors have told clients to invest in crypto to take advantage of loopholes, though still others have steered clear of the space. Recently, however, the SEC approved the first bitcoin futures exchange-traded funds.
A representative from the SEC did not immediately respond to Insider on Peirce's comments to Bloomberg.