SEC chair uses crypto enforcement in justification for FY2023 budget

Published at: May 18, 2022

Gary Gensler, Chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has cited concerns about cryptocurrency enforcement in its budget request for the next fiscal year.

In written testimony for a Wednesday hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, Gensler said he supported President Joe Biden’s request to budget more than $2.1 billion for the SEC in FY2023, allowing the regulatory body to increase its enforcement division by 50 people. The SEC chair cited concerns about the crypto space, referring to markets as “highly volatile and speculative,” as well as the need for “new tools and expertise” to address enforcement.

“The additional staff will provide the Division with more capacity to investigate misconduct and accelerate enforcement actions,” said Gensler. “It also will strengthen our litigation support, bolster the capabilities of the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, and investigate the tens of thousands of tips, complaints, and referrals we receive from the public.”

Addressing Michigan Representative Brenda Lawrence at the hearing, Gensler reiterated his view that “most” offerings from token projects fell under the SEC’s regulatory purview as securities and should be registered accordingly. According to the SEC chair, investors were currently “not well protected,” given the regulatory body’s limitations on enforcement: 

“We’ll use our enforcement tools to bring enforcement actions [against crypto trading platforms], but I prefer if they come in [...] We’re not trying to grow really significantly, but resources to grow at least six percent to grow our enforcement arm in this space.”

Gensler later added he wanted more funding to dedicate to issues related to the growing crypto space, citing 85-90 enforcement actions the SEC had brought against digital asset firms in the last year. He also referred to the recent price volatility of a crypto asset “that went from $50 billion of value to near zero just in the last three weeks,” possibly referring to TerraUSD (UST).

Related: SEC doubles down on crypto regulation by expanding unit

The recent volatility among major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) and following the collapse of Terra (LUNA), has caught the attention of more than a few regulators and lawmakers in the United States. On May 12, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen addressed the House Financial Services Committee, including in her testimony that TerraUSD (UST) and Tether (USDT) depegging from the U.S. dollar was not a “real threat to financial stability” given the scale of the stablecoin market.

Tags
Regulation
United States
Sec
Cryptocurrencies
Government
Related Posts
The new episode of crypto regulation: The Empire Strikes Back
The latest news has left the decentralized finance community in a collective fetal position. Responding to the threat of increased regulatory oversight, leading decentralized exchange Uniswap recently restricted the trading of certain tokens. Earlier in July, Dan M. Berkovitz, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that DeFi derivatives platforms might contravene the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA): “Not only do I think that unlicensed DeFi markets for derivative instruments are a bad idea, but I also do not see how they are legal under the CEA.” Most worrisome of all is the initial version of the United States …
Technology / Aug. 27, 2021
US lawmakers urge CFTC and SEC to form joint working group on digital assets
Two members of the United States House of Representatives have petitioned the heads of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to work with participants in the crypto space for transparency and regulatory clarity. In a Monday tweet, Representative Glenn Thompson said he had submitted a letter with Representative Patrick McHenry to the CFTC and SEC, urging the agencies to "establish a joint working group on digital assets.” Thompson and McHenry requested SEC Chair Gary Gensler and acting CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam to “promote an active dialogue” between federal regulators and participants in …
Regulation / Aug. 17, 2021
What the SEC can learn from the German regulator
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairperson Gary Gensler announced this month that the crypto industry should not escape the purview of the regulator. He highlighted that decentralized finance (DeFi) trading and lending protocols need particular attention when it comes to investor protections. Regulation can extend into a menu of options that covers custody, reporting, counterparty verification and asset classification and issuance. Reports are surfacing that people are waiting with bated breath on how the SEC will regulate the DeFi industry, but Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, also known as BaFin, has found a way to apply existing securities …
Technology / Aug. 12, 2021
XRP purchasers back Ripple, arguing that it is not a security
On Dec. 22, 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Ripple Labs. The complaint essentially alleged that Ripple had engaged in a multi-year, sustained practice of illegally selling unregistered, non-exempt securities in the form of its XRP tokens. This complaint, having been filed on the last day of former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton’s tenure at the commission, led to a considerable volume of public commentary, as is not unusual for SEC litigation against major players in the crypto space. What is unusual about SEC versus Ripple is the reaction from a sizable segment of XRP …
Technology / March 21, 2021
US lawmaker urges congressional action on crypto as government avoids shutdown
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, one of the ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee, has suggested Congress step in with legislation should the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) be unable to provide sufficient guidance on cryptocurrencies. In a Friday announcement from the Senate Banking Committee, Toomey said he was dissatisfied with the answers SEC chair Gary Gensler had provided on the differences between securities and commodities in regards to token projects and stablecoins. The senator questioned some of the SEC’s seeming disparities in enforcement actions between crypto firms and advisory services companies, including Glass Lewis for similar allegations of providing …
Regulation / Dec. 3, 2021