PHILADELPHIA m The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission did not attempt to consult with the crypto industry before launching this weekrs unregistered securities crackdown on staking-as-a-service, Commissioner Hester Peirce said Friday.

Speaking at a student conference at the University of Pennsylvania, Peirce said the top U.S. investments regulatorrs lawsuit against Kraken crypto exchange was the latest example of regulation-by-enforcement in the digital assets space. On Thursday, Kraken paid $30 million and shut down its U.S. staking business after the SEC alleged it was violating federal securities law.

lWe had not tried to sit down with people in the industryr to discuss staking, the process by which crypto holders delegate their tokens to validators in order to earn crypto rewards, Peirce said. She said the SEC has known about staking for a long time, and its decision to strike now was larbitrary,r as was its targeting of Krakenrs staking business first.

Read more: Kraken Agreed to Shutter US Crypto-Staking Operations to Settle SEC Charges: Source

"Yesterdayrs decision basically said, lLetrs just shut it down.r That canrt be the answer," the commissioner said.

Peirce's comments raise the prospect of SECrs battle against Krakenrs staking turning into a wider war. Kraken is hardly the only U.S. entity that runs a staking business for U.S. customers. Publicly traded company Coinbase (COIN) also offers staking, and it has said that business remains online.

She took particular umbrage at the restrictive terms of Krakenrs settlement. It has vowed to never relaunch its staking business for U.S. customers, she said, meaning it can not even go through the motions of operating above board, in the SECrs view, if it wanted to.

The SEC has taken an aggressive approach to oversight of the crypto industry under Chair Gary Gensler. Peirce has been a noted dissenter of the agencyrs handling of the crypto space for years.