SEC chair’s crypto oversight strategy in question as ecosystems collapse

While reg­u­la­tions are often aimed at pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens from bad actors, the effec­tive­ness of cryp­to reg­u­la­tions in the Unit­ed States is in ques­tion owing to the colos­sal fall of major exchanges and ecosys­tems over the past year — FTX, Cel­sius, Voy­ager, and Ter­ra (LUNA).

Con­gress­man Tom Emmer showed con­cerns about the over­sight strat­e­gy imple­ment­ed by Gary Gensler, the chair of the U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion (SEC) for the cryp­to ecosystem. 

Emmer has been vocal against Gensler’s “indis­crim­i­nate and incon­sis­tent approach” toward cryp­to over­sight. On March 16, the Con­gress­man revealed being approached by numer­ous cryp­to and blockchain firms that believed Gensler’s report­ing requests to be over­bur­den­some and sti­fling innovation.

We are even more con­cerned now as we’ve seen his strat­e­gy miss Cel­sius, Voy­ager, Terra/Luna– and now FTX.

— Tom Emmer (@RepTomEmmer) Novem­ber 25, 2022

Con­gress­man Emmer had pre­vi­ous­ly asked the SEC to com­ply with the stan­dards estab­lished in the Paper­work Reduc­tion Act of 1980, which was designed to reduce the total amount of paper­work bur­den the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment impos­es on pri­vate busi­ness­es and citizens. 

On an end note, Emmer said that “Con­gress should­n’t have to learn the details about the SEC’s over­sight agen­da through plant­ed sto­ries in pro­gres­sive pub­li­ca­tions,” adding that he was look­ing for­ward to Gensler’s pub­lic tes­ti­mo­ny before the Finan­cial Ser­vices Committee.

Relat­ed: My sto­ry of telling the SEC ‘I told you so’ on FTX

Amer­i­can CryptoFed DAO, the first offi­cial DAO in the U.S., began a lit­i­ga­tion bat­tle with the SEC over 2021 token reg­is­tra­tions and opt­ed not to have attor­neys in its fight for registration.

Amer­i­can CryptoFed also indi­cat­ed its plans to file a motion for extend­ing the dead­line for its answer to the SEC’s Order Insti­tut­ing Admin­is­tra­tive Proceedings.