U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said on Thursday that the SEC needs to do whatever it can to ensure that bad actors in the cryptocurrency sector aren’t playing with working families’ savings, and that rules are enforced aggressively and consistently.
Fast Facts:
- Speaking at the 2021 Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Annual Conference, Gensler said he would like to see more regulation around cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a report by Reuters. “This is a quite volatile, one might say highly volatile, asset class, and the investing public would benefit from more investor protection on the crypto exchanges,” Gensler said. His comments follow a dramatic correction in crypto markets this week.
- In his prepared remarks, Gensler said the SEC is “focused on going after misconduct wherever we find it in the financial system … That also means bringing cases that matter to all parts of our mission — whether deceptive conduct by private funds, offering or accounting frauds, insider trading, market manipulation, failures to act in retail customers’ best interests, reporting violations, best execution and fiduciary violations, or any other form of misconduct.”
- The SEC is currently in litigation with San Francisco-based payments technology company Ripple Labs over Ripple’s alleged sale of XRP as an unregistered securities offering worth more than US$1.38 billion.
- “What’s more, technology is always evolving, as are our markets. As we continue to stay abreast of those developments, the SEC and FINRA should be ready to bring cases involving issues such as crypto, cyber, and fintech,” he said.