SEC drops to two commissioners when Peirce leaves Friday; with the CFTC's one, seven of 10 seats will be empty

The two U.S. agencies that oversee crypto will have three commissioners between them after Friday, when SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce leaves the agency, Cointelegraph reported on Tuesday. Peirce's Oct. 2 exit was reported last week by outlets including CoinDesk, Politico Pro and American Banker. Cointelegraph noted she is leaving about two months before the 18-month extension of her second term would have run out.

That leaves the SEC with Chair Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, both Republicans, on a commission built for five. The CFTC has been run by Chair Michael Selig as its only commissioner since December 2025, according to Cointelegraph. Of 10 seats across the two agencies, seven will be empty. Cointelegraph reported it will be only the second time the SEC has operated with two commissioners.

What two commissioners can do

The number that matters is in the SEC's own rules. Under 17 CFR 200.41, a quorum is normally three members, but "if the number of Commissioners in office is less than three, a quorum shall consist of the number of members in office." So Atkins and Uyeda can keep voting out rules, exemptions and enforcement actions on their own.

The constraint is arithmetic. With two votes, any split is 1-1, and a tied vote does not pass. Every action now needs both men to agree. The rule also provides a two-member quorum only when two members remain after recusals; it sets no one-member quorum, so a matter from which either commissioner is disqualified has no clear path to a vote until a new member arrives.

Peirce, whom many in the industry called "Crypto Mom", leaves with crypto policy moving through staff guidance and exemptions rather than legislation. The SEC's "innovation exemption" for trading tokenized stocks was issued on Sept. 17, while she was still on the commission.

Why it matters more without the Clarity Act

The Digital Asset Clarity Act, which would have handed the CFTC a larger share of crypto oversight, failed in the Senate this month, as we covered in this story. Without it, rules for token issuers, exchanges and custody come from agency interpretation, which a future commission can revise. Decisions made by a two-member SEC or a one-member CFTC are just as binding, but they come from panels with no Democratic members. Senate Democrats wrote in a June letter that Congress designed these commissions to be bipartisan.

The CFTC side is already acting: the agency whose commission has a single member granted Coinbase approval for its own clearinghouse, covered in our report.

Nominations

A White House official told Cointelegraph that President Trump intends to nominate members to both agencies "in the near future." No names have been announced; CNBC reported on Sept. 4 that officials were vetting four candidates for the CFTC. A CFTC spokesperson said Selig would welcome new commissioners once confirmed by the Senate and that the agency was equipped to oversee its part of the crypto market.

Sources: Cointelegraph; Electronic Code of Federal Regulations; CoinDesk; Politico Pro; American Banker. This is market information, not investment advice.