The chair of the SEC Gary Gensler, instead of ‘getting Binance out’ in previous years, focused on Kim Kardashian’s involvement in the illegal promotion of a crypto project. In an interview with DL News, Congressman Patrick McHenry said.
The chair of the House Committee on Financial Services and co-author of two bills aimed at reducing regulatory uncertainty in the digital-asset industry, said he is not a ‘Binance fan’.
The lawmaker noted that Gensler should have acted more quickly to ‘punish’ the world’s largest crypto exchange.
“The platform is an illegal entity conducting illegal financial operations. We could have pursued ‘bad actors’ far more effectively. Frankly, Binance should have been liquidated many years ago,” — he said.
McHenry agreed with the forecast that federal prosecutors would bring criminal charges against the platform. He quipped that the SEC should have taken action rather than pursuing Kim Kardashian.
As hearings showed, the McHenry bill on digital assets has split Republicans and Democrats. According to the report, the former largely back a regime focused on cryptocurrencies, while the latter support Gensler in his actions.
“The bill would allow crypto firms against whom lawsuits for violations of our securities laws are filed to continue operating with pre-registration. The document apparently suspends any enforcement actions by the SEC against companies, even if they have committed fraud,” said Senate Banking Committee Chair Maxine Waters, a Democrat.
The Republican congressman and co-author of a bill to remove Gensler and restructure the agency, Warren Davidson, says that the head of the Commission has exceeded his powers.
“Most of the problems stemmed from the agency head’s desire to use all the authority … to implement a plan of action in any given situation”, Davidson told DL News.
On June 5, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao. The regulator brought 13 charges, including the sale of unregistered securities.
Later reports indicated that the Commission’s claims were similar to the charges brought by the agency against the beleaguered crypto exchange FTX and its subsidiary Alameda Research.
On June 6 the SEC filed a motion to freeze the digital assets held by Binance.US. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao noted that such actions, if approved by the court, would apply only to the U.S. subsidiary and not to the international exchange.
On June 12, Binance.US opposed the Commission’s emergency motion, calling it “draconian and unduly burdensome”.
The following day, a court ordered the SEC and the platform’s U.S. subsidiary to reach a compromise without freezing assets.