A U.S. congressman has defended the crypto industry against Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, who stated that it is rife with noncompliance. The lawmaker’s statement followed a pair of legal cases in which the judges sided with cryptocurrency firms over the securities regulator.
‘Crypto Is Not an Industry Rife With Noncompliance’
U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN) has once again slammed the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, for his aggressive stance on the crypto industry.
On Saturday, the lawmaker highlighted on social media platform X that the securities regulator already lost legal battles involving Ripple Labs and subsequently Grayscale Investments. He detailed:
We will see how pending litigation plays out, but it should be increasingly obvious to policymakers that, despite Gary Gensler’s mass marketing campaign, crypto is not an industry ‘rife with noncompliance.’
In July, District Judge Analisa Torres partially ruled in favor of Ripple Labs against the SEC regarding the sales of XRP. The securities watchdog is currently seeking to appeal the decision. Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of Grayscale Investments against the SEC regarding the crypto asset manager’s proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) conversion.
Following Grayscale’s win against the SEC, Emmer wrote: “Our system of checks and balances holding the abusive Administrative State accountable.”
SEC Chair Gensler has been heavily criticized for taking an enforcement-centric approach to regulating the crypto industry. He has said several times that all crypto tokens, excluding bitcoin, are securities.
Gensler said in July that right now, crypto is “a field rife with fraud, rife with hucksters,” emphasizing that “there are good-faith actors as well but there are far too many that aren’t.” Last November, the SEC chief stated that crypto “is a field that’s significantly non-compliant,” noting: “Noncompliance is not going to work, the public is going to be hurt.”
What do you think about the statements by U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer regarding crypto and SEC Chair Gary Gensler? Let us know in the comments section below.
