#11
Gary Gensler
Chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
Something something “crypto,” something something “Wild West”
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“Of the nearly 10,000 tokens in the crypto market, I believe the vast majority are securities. Offers and sales of these thousands of crypto security tokens are covered by the securities laws, which require that these transactions be registered or made pursuant to an available exemption.”
Gary Gensler is the current chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. He has served in a variety of positions within the federal government focused on finance and economics. Gensler worked as the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Barack Obama and previously served as under secretary for domestic finance and assistant secretary for financial markets at the Treasury.
Raised in Maryland, Gensler attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and completed an undergraduate degree in economics and an MBA in the 1970s. Prior to his time in public office, he worked at Goldman Sachs for 18 years, advancing to become the firm’s co-head of finance.
Gensler continued his time in office in 2022 as chair of the SEC, where the financial regulator cracked down on crypto firms in what many critics called a “regulation by enforcement” approach. The agency experienced a shakeup in leadership in 2022: Mark Uyeda and Jaime Lizárraga became the latest commissioners to join Gensler, Hester Peirce and Caroline Crenshaw on the SEC’s panel.
On the regulatory front, the SEC announced charges in a case involving a former Coinbase product manager, claiming that nine of the 25 tokens at the center of the allegations were securities under the agency’s regulatory purview. Celebrity endorsements of crypto projects were also on the SEC’s radar in 2022. In one instance, Kim Kardashian agreed to pay the SEC $1.26 million as part of a settlement for promoting EthereumMax on her Instagram account.
Gensler has repeatedly advised crypto projects to “come in and talk” to address any potential uncertainty around securities laws — a lack of regulatory clarity that many firms have pointed to when discussing how to operate in the United States legally. Lawmakers in Congress attempted to pass legislation aimed at clarifying what roles the SEC and CFTC would play in regulating different types of crypto assets — bills that largely went nowhere in 2022.
Gensler will likely serve as SEC chair until his term ends in June 2026. The financial regulator has already added its name to the list of federal agencies charging former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, alleging violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The case is ongoing, with Bankman-Fried’s trial scheduled for October.
Gensler previously said he hoped to introduce crypto-related policy changes focused on token offerings, decentralized finance, stablecoins, custody, exchange-traded funds and lending platforms during his time in office. Whether the SEC chair will use 2023 to establish a clearer path for crypto firms is uncertain, but legislation affecting the financial regulator, if any, will come under a divided Congress, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate.
