Gary Gensler, the outgoing head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seems pretty pleased with himself and the way he’s handled the crypto crackdown.
He’s quick to highlight the SEC’s aggressive enforcement actions against the bad actors littering the crypto space. But, of course, he’s not done yet. There’s still work to be done to drag crypto into line with securities laws, or so he says.
In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Gensler opened up about his “privilege” in heading up an agency that oversees the $120 trillion capital market, touching every corner of the economy.
Crypto, by comparison, is just a tiny $3 trillion sliver of that pie—but let’s be clear: his crypto legacy will stick around, for better or worse.
Before diving into his contentious relationship with crypto, Gensler wasted no time boasting about the SEC’s enforcement efforts.
On whether the crypto space is less of a “Wild West” now compared to when he took the reins, Gensler doesn’t mince words: “I think we’ve done some good things.”
Of course, he’s quick to remind us that crypto is still rife with fraudsters, and the SEC’s enforcement actions—around 100 of them during his tenure—should help clean up this mess.
2024 was a banner year for the SEC, with a record $8.2 billion in financial penalties across 583 enforcement actions. A whopping 56% of that came from the implosion of Terraform Labs and Do Kwon’s disastrous debacle.
But it’s not all sunshine and roses. Gensler’s relentless pursuit of the crypto industry has led to a few missteps and a lawsuit or two, with critics accusing him of stifling states’ rights to set their own rules.
Gensler, ever the cautious critic, isn’t backing down from his stance on crypto, calling out the industry’s obsession with sentiment over fundamentals.
When it comes to Bitcoin, he points out that public interest rises and falls depending on its market value, and then there’s the sea of lesser-known projects—around 10 to 15 thousand of them, he claims—still chasing public investment.
Having spent years in finance, Gensler is convinced that most of these projects will ultimately fail. He’s not wrong in pointing out that the industry is chock-full of frauds, scams, and pump-and-dump schemes.
And, let’s not forget the big-ticket disasters: FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, and Do Kwon—all of them responsible for hemorrhaging billions of dollars from unsuspecting investors.
Gensler stands firm: “It’s a field that built up around non-compliance, and I’m proud of what we’ve done,” though he admits, “there’s still work to be done.”
As for the future of crypto, Gensler reminds us that only about 10% of the U.S. population is invested in this volatile space. And with so many companies failing to meet securities laws, it’s clear the SEC will be keeping an eye on crypto for years to come.
