Q: you’ve said SEC has the authority to regulate cryptocurrency, why allow FTX fraud?
On 7/19/2023, during senate Appropriations hearing, Senator Kennedy questioned SEC Chair Gensler on FTX : Why did you and the SEC allow the FTX fraud to happen?

Gensler: The crypto field is often one that is co-mingling and bundling services, as I said earlier, and often also offshore …

Kennedy: … you’ve said repeatedly before FTX blew up that the SEC has the authority to regulate cryptocurrency. Now, here you have this company, FTX, run by a young man who has more zeal than wisdom. He prides himself looking like the fourth runnekr-up in a John Belushi look-alike contest. He prides himself on being under-dressed and over-haired, reeks with arrogance. You could have sent down one investigator from the SEC with an ego like Mr. Bankman-Freed and said, “I want to send someone down for the F’s from the SEC,” and let them just watch you for a day, and he probably would have welcomed you in.

Kennedy: I mean, his dad is a chaired professor at Stanford Law School … this was an accident waiting to happen, and I don’t understand where the SEC was.

Gensler: So, sir, I would say that the whole field has hurt more Americans than it should.

Q: any fair-minded person has to look at FTX kids and go, “Where was everybody? Where was the SEC?”
Kennedy: Yeah, but I’m talking about FTX. I mean, we look back at FTX. I mean, the senator just made this point, and we have this elaborate complex regulatory machinery, the SEC, which is supposed to guarantee transparency and combat fraud, and any fair-minded person has to look at FTX and Mr. Bankman-Freed and these kids and go, “… Where was everybody? Where was the SEC?”

Gensler: And I would say where we were is my predecessor and also under my honor to be chair, we’ve brought 140 or 150 actions. There are 15 to 20,000 tokens, and there are dozens of the facts.

Q: get an injunction, shut them down until they can answer some very basic questions
Kennedy: I mean, here’s this young man. He did everything but buy Mount Rushmore. Weren’t you all curious where this guy was getting this money?

Gensler: I would say that in this summer of 2021, when we Wells noticed a very large crypto exchange in the U.S, they went on Twitter and said that we were sketchy. When we subpoenaed Doe Quan, this is all public, so I can say it, when we subpoenaed, we gave him a subpoena, he fought us in the district court,

Kennedy: but I’m not talking about how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pen. I’m talking about why didn’t you send somebody down? I guarantee you with his ego, Mr. Bankman-Freed would have welcomed you. He probably would have asked you to bring a film crew. You just send an investigator down, spend a half a day with these young people, come back, and go get an injunction, shut them down until they can answer some very basic, fundamental questions, like, for example, are they co-mingling funds? Why didn’t we do that? Why didn’t you do that? That’s what we pay you folks to do.

Q: secret service name is Butthead, you could have gotten an injunction half a day
Gensler: Well, again, I mean, I get all the Wells letter and all that. We’ve got tens of thousands of people that lost a lot of money, and they look at this young man, and they’ll go, “How did the… How did the Reagan authorities, regulatory authorities, allow this guy to function? I mean, his secret service name is Butthead. That’s how bad he is. Where was the SEC?”

Kennedy: And, again, sir, I can’t speak to one enforcement matter like that, but let me just broadly say that this whole field, the whole crypto field, is built on models that we wouldn’t allow in traditional securities markets, of commingling. Why did you allow FTX? We vigorously investigate by the book. You, I’m sure, and the American public want us to follow the facts, follow the law properly, give people subpoenas, they get lawyered up, they give us replies, they effectively burn clock, and on average, you could have gotten an injunction half a day.

https://www.facebook.com/HygoNewsUSA/videos/671626217673794
Kennedy to SEC Chair on FTX: any fair-minded person Where was SEC? get an injunction, shut down half a day