The US securities regulator Gary Gensler calls on Congress to assist the commission to protect investors from abuse and fraud. He made another comprehensive attack on the cryptocurrency industry. He asks for a larger budget for SEC to crack down on crypto misconduct.
In a meeting to address the fiscal year 2024 budget request of the agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Gary Gensler, was very frank in his testimony against the crypto industry to the House Financial Services Subcommittee yesterday March 29.
Although Gensler readily accepted that the technology change is at a high pace, he still used a sweeping statement to attach the cryptocurrency industry yet again.
READ ALSO: US SEC Charges Fine on Akon and Other Celebrities for Illegal Crypto Promotion
Reasons for Gensler’s Attack
In his statement, Gensler called the digital assets sector the “Wild West” which is full of noncompliance. He said that markets are risky places where investors place their hard-earned assets just for a highly speculative asset group.
According to the SEC Chair, the agency’s budget has to increase so that they can have great power to combat the bad actors on equal terms.
“Wild West” of The Cryptocurrency Markets
Gary Gensler views himself as a self-appointed law enforcement agent instead of a regulator.
He wants Congress to help him get a huge $2.43 billion so that the Securities and Exchange Commission can go on enforcing actions against what they view as “bad actors” within the cryptocurrency industry.
According to his report, the high rising of technological innovations within the financial sector has caused misconduct in new and emerging areas, especially in the cryptocurrency space.
Gensler goes on to say that the purpose of the budget is to fund an extra 170 positions. Also, the budget is for a whole year of funding for the newly hired staff in 2023. This 2024 budget request will take care of 5,139 full-time staff of the agency says the SEC Chair.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been accused repeatedly of additional judiciary enforcement as well as acting above their jurisdiction. Moreover, Congress still has to roll out legislation that will cover cryptocurrency, and digital assets are not classified legally as securities in the US yet.
Market Moving Force
The crypto industry has always disregarded the continuous actions and threats from Uncle Sam with a gain of 2.4% on the day. As a result, they were able to wipe out every loss incurred from the CFTC Binance lawsuit earlier this week.
Thus; the overall market capitalization rose to $1.22 trillion at the time of this writing.
Bitcoin rose briefly at $29,000 on Thursday morning during the Asian trading section but fell again to $28,558 at present. On the other hand, Ethereum was trading below $1,800 as reported by CoinGecko.
