Gensler Aims to Get Crypto Exchanges to Register With SEC

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has been working harder to try and get crypto trading platforms to register with the SEC as talk about how to regulate the assets increases in volume.

In a video released Thursday (July 28), Gensler said he wants agency staff to work with crypto exchanges to help them become regulated “much like securities exchanges,” per Bloomberg.

“Look, there’s no reason to treat the crypto market differently just because a different technology is used,” he said.

Officials at the markets watchdog have said they’re looking at ways to register some coins as securities, and the agency is looking at whether to address some conflicts of interest when crypto platforms are market makers.

Gensler has previously brought up concerns about some platforms possibly shirking rules, potentially betting against their own customers.

There’s been plenty of talk about how crypto and stablecoins should be regulated, and U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) recently said the SEC’s approach has “harmed both financial innovation and American customers.”

Read more: Sen. Toomey Criticizes SEC on Crypto, Calls for Bipartisan Stablecoin Oversight

“In recent weeks, several companies whose crypto lending services were arguably within the SEC’s purview have collapsed,” Toomey wrote to Gensler, as quoted in a release from the Senate Banking Committee.

Toomey also said the firms had often promised big, potentially unsustainable interest rates to depositors, with at least one conducting somewhat risky practices — meaning Celsius, which now has $12 billion in assets frozen.

He said if the SEC had been listening to calls for guidance on how to work with securities laws with crypto, that could’ve helped companies respond accordingly and stop the losses, rather than the current situation where the commission has been regulating “by enforcement, selectively deciding to apply its opaque position on when digital assets and services are securities.”

Toomey has been in talks with Democrats in order to try and get bipartisan support on a bill for stablecoin oversight.

For all PYMNTS crypto coverage, subscribe to the daily Crypto Newsletter.