Source: BitpushNews

The encryption industry is booming, and the time for U.S. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to "step down" has been set - January 20, 2025, the same day as Trump's inauguration.

Gensler will not only resign as chief, but will also no longer serve as a committee member. After this news was released, BTC surged to $99,014.21 in the short term that day, and the 10W mark seemed to be on the verge of breaking.

Gensler thanked President Joe Biden and his colleagues in the statement, calling the SEC "an incredible agency... that serves ordinary Americans on behalf of them and ensures that our capital markets remain the best in the world." This position is the honor of my life.”

Shortly after the news of Gensler’s departure, Ian Katz, managing director of Capital Alpha Partners, commented: “The encryption industry has ‘got its wish’. , the next SEC chairman will be Gensler is friendly.”

Gary Gensler, who graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has a strong academic background in the blockchain field.

Before joining the SEC, he served as a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and expressed his interest in blockchain technology in public on many occasions.

While serving as a professor at MIT, Gensler taught a course on "Blockchain and Currency" to explore the potential applications of blockchain in the financial field.

In 2018, he gave students an assignment in his MIT class: read the Bitcoin white paper.

MIT has released Gensler’s course as a public course, which can be viewed for free on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6vE97qIP4).

However, after he took office as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 17, 2021, he became the "big villain" in the encryption industry.

So where does the industry’s “hatred” for Gensler come from?

Gensler has repeatedly emphasized that many cryptocurrency projects are suspected of violating securities laws.

After the FTX crash in 2022, Gensler spearheaded an industry-wide crackdown, suing Binance, Binance.US, Coinbase, Kraken, Shapeshift and others, accusing the exchanges of being unregistered Securities brokers and clearing agencies.

In 2023, the SEC will supervise the encryption industry with unprecedented intensity. Data show that 46 law enforcement actions were initiated throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 53%. The total amount of fines reached US$2.89 billion, of which the settlement amount in the yearamounted to US$281 million.

Gensler filed more than 100 lawsuits against the digital asset industry during his tenure at the SEC, according to the Blockchain Association, which represents nearly 100 industry players including Grayscale and Paradigm. This cost the association's members approximately $429 million in litigation-related expenses.

This hard-line approach has made Gensler’s relationship with the cryptocurrency community increasingly tense. Many industry insiders believe that the SEC’s regulations are too strict and its regulatory framework is not suitable for the emerging cryptocurrency industry.

However, Gensler has also done some good things for encryption. In January this year, the SEC approved an exchange-traded fund that tracks the spot price of Bitcoin, and subsequently approved an Ethereum ETF. With such products, investors can more easily buy cryptocurrencies without taking on risks, providing a wide range of cryptocurrencies. Adoption opens a window.

From Gensler’s perspective, he does not completely deny cryptocurrency, but hopes to use a compliant approach to allow traditional finance to enter the market. After the adoption of ETF, Wall Street financial giants poured in one after another. Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton rushed into the crypto market to share the cake, further accelerating the integration of crypto into the mainstream financial system.

Gensler once said in an interview that encryption may be beneficial to economic development, but only if they have strong supervision. He gave the example: The automobile industry can only become a digital currency after the introduction of traffic lights and speed limit rules. Popularity.

Trump, who once called Bitcoin a “scam”, fully embraced cryptocurrency during this campaign. He promised to turn the United States into a “global cryptocurrency capital.” ", while launching the family cryptocurrency business and promoting the removal of Gensler on the first day of taking office.

Gensler chose to resign voluntarily, and Trump has not yet nominated a successor as chairman. Several current candidates include former SEC member and current private practice lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén, Robinhood chief legal officer Dan Gallagher, former acting director of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks (who briefly managed Binance.US), former SEC member/Token Alliance Co-Chairman Paul Atkins and more.

The new SEC chairman may continue some of Gensler’s supervision, but may also introduce a new regulatory framework.

In Gensler's absence, the committee will be composed of two members from each party, and major shifts or enforcement decisions could take longer before Republicans gain a majority on the committee.

The SEC’s major decisions (firings, settlements, and enforcement actions) are not made by the chairman alone. For example, involving litigationDecisions, even under the watchful eye of the chairman's office, will ultimately require the approval of a majority of the committee, dismissal of existing cases would require a committee vote, and Republicans would not enjoy an SEC majority for the time being.

At the federal appeals court level, these matters of dismissal are overseen by the agency’s general counsel, according to Tom Krysa, a former SEC enforcement attorney and now a partner at Foley & Lardner. While the office may seek an extension under the watchful eye of the chairman's office, withdrawing the appeal entirely would require approval by a majority of the committee.

Krysa believes that if Trump nominates Mark Uyeda as acting chairman of the SEC, the structure of the committee will change, but there will not be an immediate "180-degree turn." Even though Democratic commissioners' terms are coming to an end, they still have the ability to influence direction in the short term.

As for the SEC’s handling of pending cases, this part will change relatively quickly. The new chairman can influence the direction of these cases by adjusting internal enforcement strategies.

Trump has promised to appoint an SEC chairman who supports the crypto industry. It remains to be seen how the new official will handle the agency's series of pending lawsuits with crypto companies/projects after taking office.

But what is certain is that everyone in the circle is waiting for the arrival of 10W/BTC.