Why Is Gary Gensler Trending Today

Former U.S. SEC Chair Gary Gensler appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and addressed his concerns on the current state of the crypto space, defending the agency’s regulation by enforcement approach. The crypto community slams Gensler yet again for his irrational viewpoint and for resisting innovation in the United States.

Gary Gensler Is Proud of Crypto Enforcement Actions

Gary Gensler continues to resist crypto innovation, not happy with how the SEC has taken a 180-degree turn toward the crypto industry under Paul Atkins. CNBC host highlighted that the SEC is reversing a lot of his decisions, especially on crypto and AI.

Gensler said he is really proud of what he has accomplished during his tenure, including reforms and decisions in terms of investor protection. He claims he was right about securities and enforcement actions in the crypto market.

Notably, the SEC under Gensler filed lawsuits against all crypto giants, such as Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken, while continuing its legacy lawsuit against Ripple. Paul Atkins-led SEC has ended all these lawsuits.

The crypto community often criticized Gensler for pressing crypto and not offering clear guidelines and rules for the industry. Crypto leaders stressed that he didn’t even work towards investor protection and his priorities remained on defining crypto assets as securities.

Most Crypto Tokens Have No Fundamentals, Says Gary Gensler

Gary Gensler reiterated his stance that crypto is “highly speculative and very risky” for investors, taking pride in their enforcement actions on the crypto industry. Putting aside Bitcoin, most of the tokens are not tied to any fundamentals, he added.

Putting aside Bitcoin, most of the other tokens are not tied to any fundamentals and there are 5 or 10 thousand of these tokens.

The statement caught the attention of the crypto community, speculating whether Gensler has become a “Bitcoin maximalist.” However, this likely came as spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved during his tenure after much friction.

Crypto Community’s Reactions

While most in the crypto community avoided giving attention to Gary Gensler’s appearance on CNBC, some including Paul Barron Network re-shared his interview on the X platform. Tyler Winklessvoss reacted, saying “Gensler is a total disgrace to our country.”

Luke Martin claimed Gensler didn’t work as an SEC Chair, but a financial advisor or fund manager could be the real reason he didn’t support the crypto industry for so long. The public is interested, but for investors, most of these tokens aren’t tied to fundamentals. Like Buffet would say, what are the goods? What are the revenues?

Avoiding Gensler, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said “Seeing great progress for crypto in DC. Our focus, as always, is consumer protection. Both sides of the aisle are aligned on bringing clear rules to make this happen, which is ideal.”

He added that he is more bullish about progress towards market structure. Coinbase will also not let big banks’ unserious attempts to ban crypto rewards by re-litigating the GENIUS Act distract them from bringing more clarity to the crypto market after the recent developments on market structure.