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Gensler Says SEC Should Be 'Ready to Bring Cases' Involving Crypto
The SEC chair continued to highlight investor protection as he previewed the regulator’s cryptocurrency enforcement efforts.
By Danny Nelson
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:59 p.m. Published May 20, 2021, 10:31 p.m.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief Gary Gensler said Thursday that federal financial regulators should “be ready to bring cases” against bad actors in crypto and other emerging technologies.
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“As we continue to stay abreast of those developments, the SEC and FINRA [the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority] should be ready to bring cases involving issues such as crypto, cyber and fintech,” Gensler told FINRA conference attendees. He highlighted investor protection throughout his brief remarks.
The statements come as federal agencies propose upgrades to their crypto-monitoring efforts, from the Internal Revenue Service asking businesses to disclose high-value transactions to lawmakers calling for reviews of crypto-friendly banking policies.
Read more: New OCC Chief Signals Greater Caution on Crypto
“We need to do whatever we can to ensure that bad actors aren’t playing with working families’ savings and that the rules are enforced aggressively and consistently,” Gensler said.
He said regulators should be ready to pursue deceptive private funds, accounting fraud, insider trading and a bevy of other potential regulatory pitfalls rippling throughout the capital markets.
#SEC Chair Gensler previews enforcement involving #crypto: https://t.co/eSwr0ofZMG pic.twitter.com/dAKsTBxgH6
— Drew Hinkes (@propelforward) May 20, 2021
While hardly offering a playbook, Gensler’s remarks may bolster the perception that investor protection is a top priority for the Biden Adminstration’s SEC – especially when it comes to crypto.
Read more: SEC Chair Gary Gensler Recommends Congress Regulate Crypto Exchanges
Perhaps more telling was the SEC’s May 11 warning to investors in mutual funds that trade bitcoin futures. Though it contained no allegations of fraud, the memo highlighted bitcoin’s legendary volatility and instructed SEC staff to consider suspicious activity in the space.
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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U.S. Senate's Crypto Market Structure Bill Gets Messy as Calendar Weighs Down
The White House has shut down proposals, and lawmakers are circulating the Democrats' asks in what had been a close negotiation, revealing 11th-hour pressure.
What to know:
- Democrats shared a response to Republicans outlining their continuing priorities for a crypto market structure bill, which they said was intended to "reach an agreement and proceed towards a mark-up."
- The document laid out concerns with financial stability, market integrity and public officials' ability to trade and profit off of crypto, echoing concerns laid out in a framework Democrats shared in September.
- The Senate is running out of time in the Congressional calendar to hold a markup hearing — a key step toward progressing the bill — before 2025 ends.
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