SEC Chair Gensler blames crypto industry's non-compliance for enforcement actions; set to update rules

Read more - Members of US FSC urge SEC Chair Gensler to immediately approve spot Bitcoin ETFs

The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has repeated his view that the crypto market should not be exempted from securities laws, as according to him, the vast majority of crypto tokens likely meet the investment contract test. 

Gensler made his views clear during a testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services (FSC), in which he discussed the state of the crypto market along with US lawmakers. 

SEC Chair attacks crypto market

The SEC Chair went on to blame the crypto industry for the enforcement actions taken by the regulatory body in the past. Gensler stated,

"Given this industry's wide-ranging non-compliance with the securities laws, it's not surprising that we've seen many problems in these markets…Thus, we have brought a number of enforcement actions—some settled, and some in litigation—to hold wrongdoers accountable and promote investor protection.

While Gensler did say, during the testimony, that the SEC had come up with new proposals for the crypto market, he did not specify any of them. 

US House FSC cracks down on SEC

The testimony presented by Gensler came a day after the US House Financial Services Committee's members wrote a letter to the SEC Chair. In the letter the FSC urged the regulatory body to approve all spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) filings "immediately". 

Endorsed by Representatives Mike Flood, Wiley Nickel, Tom Emmer and Richie Torres, the letter called the SEC's standards of denial of spot ETFs as “inconsistent and discriminatory". House FSC also stated that a regulated spot Bitcoin ETF would provide protection to investors as it would make BTC much safer to access and more transparent.

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