Outgoing SEC Head Gary Gensler Calls for More Progress On Crypto Regulations

• Ongoing cases between crypto firms and the SEC could be dismissed under Donald Trump’s administration.
• Gary Gensler has pursued at least 100 enforcement actions against the crypto industry in the past 4 years.
• Trump has picked former SEC commissioner and pro-crypto advocate Paul Atkins as the next SEC head.

The outgoing head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has expressed pride in the work he’s done in bringing enforcement actions against bad actors in crypto.

Gensler argues there’s still progress to be made to bring crypto in compliance with securities laws.

Looking Back

Speaking with Bloomberg Television  about his tenure as the SEC’s 33rd Chair, Gensler opens the interview by talking of having the privilege to work as the head of an agency that oversees the “$120 trillion capital market, which touches everything in our economy.”

Though crypto represents just $3 trillion of that figure, Gensler’s legacy in crypto will be unforgettable.

The interview segues almost immediately into crypto and Gensler’s track record of arguably heavy-handed enforcement actions against the crypto industry.

On the question of whether the crypto industry is “less of a Wild West” now than when he took office, Gensler said, “I think we’ve done some good things.”

He notes that the field is full of bad actors, and under his four-year watch, the SEC has brought in around 100 enforcement actions against crypto firms.

In 2024, the SEC obtained orders  for a record $8.2 billion in financial penalties across 583 enforcement actions, 56% of which is attributable to the Terraform Labs and Do Kwon collapse.

His frequent feuds with crypto have resulted in several misfires, including a relatively large lawsuit filed against him for the ceaseless crypto crackdowns and for preventing states from formulating their own rules.

Work To Be Done

Regarding the crypto industry itself, how tokens are regulated, and establishing greater consumer protections, Gensler said, “I’ve never seen a field that’s so wrapped up in sentiment and not so much about fundamentals.”

Talking on Bitcoin (BTC) notes that the public knowledge of BTC is high “depending on its market value on any given day, ” adding, “and then there’s everything else.”

He mentioned “ten or fifteen thousand” projects that are raising money from public investment from those hoping for a better future.

Based on his years in finance, he believes many of these projects will fail. Amongst them, he acknowledged there are still plenty of frauds, scams, pump and dumps, and bad actors overall.

Highlighting the high-profile cases involving FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), as well as Binance’s former head, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, and Do Kwon, which lost investors tens of billions of dollars, Gensler says:

“It’s a field that built up around non-compliance, and I’m proud of what we’ve done,” adding, “I think there’s still work to be done.”

He explained that just a tenth of the U.S. population invests in crypto and that it’s an area full of challenges and failures to comply with securities laws, upon which many of the SEC’s cases hinge.