What Do We Know About Valerie Szczepanik, the First Crypto Czar

Is creation of a SEC office designated to deal with digital assets a good or bad news for the industry? This is the question that crypto community has been mulling over last week, following the SEC's announcement of Valerie A. Szczepanik's appointment to the brand new position of Associate Director of the Division of Corporation Finance and Senior Advisor for Digital Assets and Innovation for Division Director Bill Hinman.

The media have promptly reduced the exuberant title to the likes of Crypto Czar, Crypto Sheriff, Cryptocurrency Chief, or Crypto Quarterback, which all point to the fact that from now on the vast yet diffused regulatory powers that the SEC holds over the blockchain realm is embodied in a single person.

The community's overall mood in the wake of Szczepanik's promotion seems quite sanguine, as people go back to examine the record of her statements and find out that she is more likely to be the good cop rather than the bad.Valerie A. Szczepanik on crypto.

She then worked as a clerk for federal judges in district and appellate courts in DC before moving north to serve as Special Assistant United States Attorney at the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.The future crypto czar joined the SEC in 1997 as a Trial Counsel.

With the advent of the ICO era, she became involved in a number of prominent cases against crypto enterprises in New York federal courts, and also worked on an investigation into The DAO's collapse.

For one, in one of the first public appearances in the new capacity at the SINET Innovation Summit in New York on June 7, the newly crowned crypto czar expressed an ambitious vision of a potential approach to government regulation of ICOs.

Szczepanik's appointment comes at the point when the financial regulator has found itself toeing the thin line between the right amount of crypto investors' protection and enough latitude for ICO entrepreneurs to let the economy of digital assets and decentralized transactions flourish.

Imagine the feelings of the crypto folk if in an unlikely twist of the plot the weight of ICO regulation was assigned to be managed directly by Jay "Every-ICO-Is-A-Security" Clayton, or even some of the more rigid characters within the agency.

The new crypto czar's earlier comments also reveal that she is not a big fan of prescriptive guidance: rather than inventing guidelines for hypothetical situations, she prefers to sit down with innovators and their lawyers to discuss where their projects are heading and whether the developments are in line with the US securities law.

Hopefully, the SEC's new crypto officer can infuse her team with the same spirit, for it looks improbable that she personally will have the time to sit down and chat with every single crypto entrepreneur who could use her advice.