Investor who put $600 million into a Bitcoin hedge fund hires former SEC chief as adviser

Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton has joined the hedge fund One River Asset Management’s regulatory advisory council. This is stated in a press release from the company.

A similar invitation was extended to former Trump adviser Kevin Hassett and Jon Orszag, a member of the executive committee at Compass Lexecon.

Representatives of One River said that the experts would help assess how the new digital systems and the investment opportunities they propose would fit into the existing policy.

In 2020, the volatility-trading hedge fund reported purchases of bitcoins worth more than $600 million and investments by billionaire Alan Howard.

Clayton was named chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2017. During his tenure, the SEC secured orders for fines and restitution totaling more than $14 billion and returned $3.5 billion to investors.

The regulator paid whistleblowers $565 million, including a record award in the program’s history — $114 million. For the 2020 financial year, $4.68 billion was collected, of which $1.26 billion related to the Telegram ICO and cryptocurrency token sales.

Under Clayton’s leadership, regulated futures based on Bitcoin and Ethereum were launched, but applications to launch exchange-traded funds based on the first cryptocurrency have not been approved.

In November 2020, Clayton confirmed that would resign. On December 23, he stepped down from the post as chairman of the SEC.