Staff of SEC’s Crypto Task Force Includes Former Big-Law Crypto Lawyer

The new chief counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) freshly-created Crypto Task Force is a crypto lawyer.

Michael Selig, who was named chief counsel of the task force in a Monday announcement from the SEC, was previously a New York-based partner at white-shoe international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he was a member of the firm’s crypto practice. Before joining Willkie, Selig interned for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In a Monday X post, former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo, affectionately known as “CryptoDad” by many in the industry, congratulated Selig on his appointment. Giancarlo is also senior counsel at Wilkie Farr, where he leads the firm’s Digital Works practice.

“Proud and excited for my protege, former CFTC intern and Willkie partner Mike Selig to be named chief counsel to the new SEC Crypto Task Force,” Giancarlo wrote.

Last October, Selig wrote an op-ed for CoinDesk laying out his suggestions for how the SEC could move away from the so-called “regulation by enforcement” the agency practiced under former Chair Gary Gensler and instead create a regulatory environment that encourages innovation. Several of Selig’s suggestions — including rescinding the controversial Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 and withdrawing from certain lawsuits – have already been implemented by the new Crypto Task Force.

Selig was one of 14 staff members named in the Monday announcement. His colleagues include several crypto industry natives — Landon Zinda, former policy director at crypto think tank Coin Center, and Veronica Reynolds, a former attorney at Baker Hostetler LLP focused on NFTs and metaverse-related kanunî issues, both of whom will serve as senior advisors to the task force — as well as career SEC staff. Zinda’s appointment to the task force was announced in February.

“The Crypto Task Force exhibits deep expertise and an enthusiastic commitment to identifying — with the help of other talented staff across the Commission and interested members of the public — workable solutions to difficult crypto regulatory problems,” Commissioner Hester Peirce, the leader of the task force, said in a Monday statement.