SEC Chairman Gary Gensler met with head of FTX mon

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Gary Gensler’s controversial tenure as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission could reach peak drama over a 45-minute Zoom call with Sam Bankman-Fried, the former crypto wunderkind at the center of the largest debacle the $1 trillion digital coin industry has ever witnessed.

On March 23, some eight months before Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire collapsed and was forced into bankruptcy, Gensler granted what some crypto players are calling an unusual meeting to the then-billionaire and prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates, including his boss, President Biden.

Even before the FTX imbroglio, Gensler mounted an aggressive and, some would say, controversial regulatory assault on the crypto business. In public comments, he has stated most digital coins qualify as unregistered securities, and thus creators could face sanctions similar to those sought from executives of Ripple who face an SEC lawsuit over the unregistered issuance of their native coin XRP.

While exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, and Bankman-Fried’s FTX process crypto trades for customers, they operate in a regulatory gray area without explicit SEC approval, thus opening management to possible sanctions.

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