A former Chainlink legal executive has jumped to the regulator side as the SEC doubles down on clearer crypto rules and interagency coordination.
Taylor Lindman, who spent five years at Chainlink Labs rising to senior legal roles including Deputy General Counsel, is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new Crypto Task Force Chief Counsel, the company confirmed on Monday. Chainlink’s social post thanked Lindman for his service and said it looks forward to “modernizing the U.S. financial system together,” underscoring how industry experience is flowing into the agency as Washington refines crypto policy.
Lindman will replace Michael Selig, who left the role after being appointed Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in December 2025. As Chief Counsel, Lindman will serve as the task force’s senior legal advisor, responsible for compliance, risk management and guiding legal interpretation across digital-asset matters.
The appointment comes amid a broader SEC effort to reshape its approach to crypto. After Gary Gensler’s departure, Commissioner Mark Uyeda established the Crypto Task Force to reassess the agency’s digital-asset strategy and craft a more comprehensive regulatory framework. Commissioner Hester Peirce — who leads the task force — welcomed Lindman on X, calling the hire a positive step.
Since launching, the task force has hosted multiple industry roundtables covering tokenization, DeFi, financial surveillance and privacy. At ETH Denver last week, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the agency will press forward on digital-asset regulation through a relaunched Project Crypto, now a joint initiative with the CFTC. Atkins described plans for “harmonization, joint rulemaking — a common, coordinated approach” between the two often-competing agencies.
Planned priorities Atkins and others have flagged include:
- A Commission framework clarifying how the SEC views crypto assets that may be investment contracts.
- An innovation exemption to permit limited trading of some tokenized securities on new platforms.
- Use of no-action letters and exemptive orders to give industry additional clarity.
- Rulemaking on custody for non-security digital assets (for example, payment stablecoins) held by broker-dealers.
- Modernizing transfer agent rules to accommodate blockchain-based recordkeeping.
Advocates at the SEC say staff under Peirce’s Crypto Task Force have already provided more clarity in the past year than the prior decade, but Atkins told the House Financial Services Committee that durable, long-lasting rules will ultimately require market-structure legislation to “future-proof” the rulebook.
Why it matters: Lindman’s move is another signal that regulators want people with hands-on crypto experience shaping policy. As the SEC and CFTC align on taxonomy, jurisdiction and fragmented rules, hires like Lindman could influence how practical and innovation-friendly the upcoming regulatory toolset becomes — including the way tokens are classified, how custody is regulated, and how tokenized securities trade.
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