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.
“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 IRS asking businesses to disclose high-value transactions to lawmakers calling for reviews of crypto-friendly banking policies.
“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.
