Whom Did the SEC Tap to Its Top Media Relations Post?

The cryptocurrency industry needs more friends in high places, but the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to ramp up its crypto-skeptic personnel and resources.

On Wednesday afternoon, the SEC announced that it has tapped Stephanie Allen, former national press secretary for Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), as its director of media relations and speechwriting.

The SEC Welcomes Allen to Top Media Relations Post

According to the SEC’s announcement, Allen’s promotion has actually been effective since October 1 though not made public until today. She takes over from Aisha Johnson, who has left the SEC.

Allen is not a newcomer to the agency. She has served as director of speechwriting and senior adviser to SEC Chair Gary Gensler since March 2023. The two previously worked together at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Allen was at the CFTC from July 2011 to March 2014, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She also was a member of a panel backing Gensler at a July conference on “Artificial Intelligence and Finance.”

Her prior roles include serving as executive director of the Ludwing Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity. Prior to that role, Allen was director of strategic communications and marketing at IBM-affiliated Promontory Financial Group.

But the prior role that may hold the most interest for those following the tone and tenor of crypto regulation under Gensler’s SEC is Allen’s stint as national press secretary for Senator Casey.

Senator Bob Casey’s Stand on Digital Assets

On August 1, Senator Casey was one of four powerful lawmakers who signed a letter addressed to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The other signers were Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

BeInCrypto reported on the contents of this letter, in which the senators requested information on the Treasury Department’s progress in implementing new reporting requirements. The ultimate goal? To plug a $1 trillion tax gap in the United States.  

The new reporting requirements are mandatory under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the senators maintained. The senators blame many factors for underreported or unreported income. Yet they leave no doubt that they consider cryptocurrency the top culprit.

Hence they demand an update on progress toward stopping “runaway tax evasion across the cryptocurrency ecosystem” and providing taxpayers with the resources to report crypto earnings accurately.

Learn more about Senator Elizabeth Warren’s longstanding campaign against the cryptocurrency industry.

The letter long antedates Allen’s service with Senator Bob Casey. Yet she has a longtime professional relationship with current SEC Chair Gary Gensler. The very official who has called crypto “a field rife with fraud, rife with hucksters.” And who has steadily escalated the SEC’s war on the crypto sector.

That association, and her past service to a pro-regulation lawmaker, do not bode well for a shift in the SEC’s fierce hostility toward digital innovation.