In This Article:
(Bloomberg) -- Gary Gensler is making a final pitch for how the SEC should be allowed to regulate cryptocurrency markets ahead of the incoming Trump administration and its enthusiasm for digital assets.
Most Read from Bloomberg
-
NYC Congestion Pricing Plan With $9 Toll to Start in January
-
Saudi Neom Gets $3 Billion Loan Guarantee From Italy Export Credit Agency Sace
In remarks prepared for a Thursday legal conference in New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission chair repeated that the agency should be focused on “rules of the road” that apply to crypto sales and intermediaries, such as brokers and exchanges, to promote proper disclosure.
The experience of the Great Depression, where so many investors were wiped out and the economy went into a tailspin, taught policymakers about the importance of “provisions about disclosure because information about securities creates a public good,” Gensler said at the Practicing Law Institute’s annual securities regulation conference.
Gensler reaffirmed that Bitcoin itself isn’t a security, a position taken by his predecessor during the first Trump administration, Jay Clayton.
“Our focus, rather, has been on some of the 10,000 or so other digital assets,” that total up to about $600 billion, less than 20% of the crypto market when Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins are carved out, he said.
Waning Days
Gensler commented as the clock begins to run out on the current administration, and perhaps on his approach to regulating crypto. The next Republican administration at the SEC likely won’t share his view of the digital asset industry as being rife with noncompliance, or that participants must abide by the same decades-old securities rules as traditional exchanges and issuers.
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to create a friendly regulatory framework for crypto, set up a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and make the US the global hub for the industry. A onetime crypto skeptic, Trump changed tack after digital-asset firms spent heavily during election campaigning to promote their interests.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has vowed to significantly whittle the size and powers of the SEC watchdog. While Trump has distanced his policy views from Project 2025, some of his allies, such as Elon Musk, have vowed to undertake similar plans through the newly announced Department of Government Efficiency.
“Elections have consequences, and they should,” Gensler said. “I am proud to continue on Chair Clayton’s leadership,” he said. “We didn’t actually differ that much,” referring to the lack of disclosures from the industry and crypto intermediaries not separating out their different business lines.