SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce: Publishing Code Is Speech the First Amendment Protects
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce published a statement on June 2, 2026 laying out the principles she uses to determine where securities regulation belongs and where it does not. The first principle listed: publishing code is speech, and the First Amendment protects it.
WHAT PEIRCE ACTUALLY SAID
The statement is direct on developer liability. People who do nothing more than write open-source code for others to use should not be required to register with the SEC. Software, including software that can be used to facilitate activities that were historically handled through intermediaries, is protected speech. So is publishing updated versions of that software, recommending updates, and encouraging users to adopt improved tools.
Peirce, who leads the SEC's Crypto Task Force and has been nicknamed "Crypto Mom" for her long record of dissenting against the agency's enforcement-first approach to digital assets, went further. Blockchains are general-purpose technology, she wrote, not infrastructure the SEC should treat as securities market infrastructure by default. Neutral conduits that process data according to open, verifiable, non-discretionary logic are no more securities market participants than a telephone company carrying a conversation about stock tips is a broker-dealer.
The statement also addressed decentralization directly: when no single party can change the rules or discriminate against users, the foundational rationale for regulatory intervention disappears.
WHY THIS IS SIGNIFICANT FOR BITCOIN DEVELOPERS
The context matters. The prior administration used the SEC and related agencies to pursue open-source developers on the theory that writing software used by sanctioned entities or in illicit transactions made developers liable. The cases against Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet were the two clearest examples of that logic in action. Coin Center, the nonprofit crypto policy organization, challenged the Tornado Cash action as a First Amendment violation.
The hosts on Simply Bitcoin Live drew the straight line: the government was setting precedents with privacy tools first, then potentially moving to argue that Bitcoin core developers were "enabling" transactions involving sanctioned nations. Satoshi Nakamoto's decision to disappear was offered as evidence of how real that threat was understood to be. Peirce's statement closes off at least the SEC lane of that argument, in this administration.
The statement also reinforced base-layer neutrality as a principle: blockchain networks derive utility from their ability to process transactions without prejudice, and legally crediting that neutrality is not just about avoiding overregulation. It is about preserving what makes the technology valuable.
THE PEIRCE DEPARTURE AND WHAT IT MEANS
The caveat hanging over all of this is timing. Regent University School of Law announced in May that Peirce will join its faculty in November 2026. Her second five-year term at the SEC expired in June 2025 and she has been serving in a holdover capacity since. When she leaves, the SEC loses its most consistent internal advocate for treating digital assets and open-source development as outside the agency's enforcement mandate.
The question now is whether the principles she articulated represent a genuine culture shift at the SEC under Chair Paul Atkins, or whether they are one commissioner's views that will lose their institutional weight once she is gone. Atkins has signaled alignment with her direction. How the White House fills her seat will determine whether these guardrails hold.
