SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has just delivered one of the strongest defences of financial privacy we’ve seen from a US regulator.
Speaking at the Science of Blockchain Conference hosted at UC Berkeley, she challenged the idea that all financial systems must be subject to surveillance.
She argued that open source immutable protocols, available to anyone and controlled by no one, should not be forced to comply with laws designed for financial intermediaries. She made the case that building neutral infrastructure is not a crime, and that writing open source code should not make you a target.
While the headlines call it a speech about crypto, her remarks point directly at Bitcoin.
She described “an immutable, open source protocol… available for anyone’s use in perpetuity,” and argued that “requiring that it comply with financial surveillance measures is fruitless.” She added that we should not “ask peers transacting with one another, where no intermediary exists, to collect and report information on each other,” and warned that doing so “would deputize us to surveil our neighbors... a practice antithetical to a free society.”
No other digital asset fits that description. Bitcoin runs without intermediaries, cannot be altered by committees, and allows individuals to hold and transfer value without permission.
It was a clear and necessary signal to policymakers, developers, and the public that financial privacy is not a loophole, but a principle that deserves protection.
Read the full speech here:
https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/peirce-remarks-blockchain-conference-080425
