The Crypto Community Joins Silvermint in Condemning SEC Chair Gensler

We love being ahead of the curve.

A day after we pointed out SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s baffling and dangerous remarks in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, other voices in the crypto weighed in on Twitter and in the media as well.

… multiple members of the crypto community took shots at him on Twitter over the paywalled piece. “You can’t have local regs for a global permissionlessly accessible financial system… He thinks you’re too dumb to understand this,” said Starkiller Capital Chief Investment Officer Leigh Drogen. “This US government official unironically shilled his paywall link instead of just acknowledging openly that basically he thinks the entire global economy should already simply comply with US regulations as if America really was the legal capital of the globe,” added DefiDi◎genes. 

CoinShares Chief Strategy Officer Meltem Demirors also weighed in. “instead of writing op eds, maybe the agency could try (a) engaging with the market participants it’s supposed to oversee and then (b) make pragmatic practicable rules and enforce them equally,” she wrote. Dizer Capital founder Yassin Mobarak was particularly scathing, accusing the former banker of corruption. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t disclose your connections to Vanguard, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs,” he wrote. “You need to resign. The stench of corruption on you is suffocating.” (Gensler, who formerly worked at Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs and had an estimated net worth of up to $119 million in February 2021, has never been found guilty of corruption). 

Gensler clearly doesn’t understand cryptocurrency, but he does want to dangerously expand the SEC’s jurisdiction by declaring, unilaterally, that every token is a security, while simultaneously refusing to provide clear guidance to the industry. The effect will be to smother crypto in the crib.

We are glad the industry agrees with us, and in turn we agree with the industry – Gensler needs to resign.