Congressman Tom Emmer, a supporter of cryptocurrencies, has attacked U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief Gary Gensler for his attitude to cryptocurrency regulation, branding him a “bad faith regulator.”
Emmer didn’t mince words when he questioned Gensler’s regulation of the crypto business on the Unchained podcast, hosted by author and crypto journalist Laura Shin on April 7: “In my opinion, this guy is a bad-faith regulator.” He has been indiscriminately spraying the crypto community with enforcement measures, entirely ignoring the genuinely harmful people.”
Emmer cited Coinbase as an example of a company that, prior to receiving a Wells Notice from the SEC in March, was actively attempting to collaborate with the agency by soliciting compliance comments on staking products, among other things.
“Gary Gensler may have an open door, but it is an enter-at-your-own-risk door,” he said, adding that “despite several meetings over several months, Gary Gensler’s SEC refused to provide feedback.”
Since taking over the SEC in April 2021, Gensler has often stated that the agency has an “open door policy” and has urged crypto businesses to register with the SEC in order to comply with securities legislation. This is mostly due to his belief that, except Bitcoin (BTC), virtually all crypto assets are categorized as securities, and hence the industry should be predominantly controlled by the SEC.
Despite this, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has often emphasized the difficulty of dealing with the SEC, and other players like as Kraken CEO Jesse Powell have expressed similar thoughts. Many in the crypto community have expressed concern about the SEC’s and the larger US government’s apparent anti-crypto-focused regulation by enforcement strategy.
In response, Emmer commented, “This is clearly not the way the government should be serving Americans, and I believe it sends a clear message to the broader crypto community, and that directly is ‘Gary Gensler is not regulating in good faith.”
