The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has suspended or dismissed approximately 60% of cases involving crypto assets since January 2025, a significantly higher percentage than other areas of securities law.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) has dismissed cases involving cryptocurrency under the Trump administration at a significantly higher rate than other areas of securities law. According to a New York Times report published Sunday, since President Donald Trump took office in January, the SEC has paused, dismissed investigations, or dismissed approximately 60% of cases involving companies and projects in the cryptocurrency industry.
The report highlighted notable cases, including the SEC lawsuits against Ripple Labs and Binance, and stated that the financial regulator “is no longer actively pursuing any cases against companies with known ties to Trump.” Entities linked to the Trump family significantly expanded their involvement in the digital asset industry in 2025, with organizations linked to the president or his family involved in numerous crypto projects, including World Liberty Financial, the Official Trump memecoin, and the American Bitcoin mining project by the president's sons.
Explanation from the regulatory agency
The SEC responded to The New York Times that political favoritism “has nothing to do with” the agency’s enforcement strategy toward crypto assets, and that the diversion to drop investigations and lawsuits was for legal and policy reasons. The newspaper also said it found no evidence that Trump pressured the agency to drop investigations or lawsuits.
Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, responded to The New York Times article that “the idea that the shift in regulation of crypto assets over the past year is somehow due to the president’s personal interests, rather than because the previous regulatory stance was completely insane” is a dishonest framing, ignoring four years of direct attacks from genuinely partisan figures.
Although SEC Chairman Paul Atkins is likely to remain as committee chairman for many years, the agency is expected to lose its last remaining Democratic member of leadership. Caroline Crenshaw is scheduled to leave the SEC in January, after serving an additional 18 months from her initial term, which expires in 2024. At the time of writing, Trump has not announced a replacement for Crenshaw or for the other vacant Democratic seat on the agency.
Unlike Atkins and other Republican commissioners, Crenshaw has publicly criticized the agency's approach to digital assets under the Trump administration. In one of his final public appearances as an SEC commissioner last week, Crenshaw warned that loosening regulations on crypto assets could lead to a greater spread of serious market risk.
