A United States lawmaker wants to strip the Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler of his salary by paying him just $1 per year.
In a proposed amendment to the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Rep. Tim Burchett suggested that Gensler’s salary be brought down to $1, as part of wider proposal to defund the regulator.
First introduced on July 13 this year, the FSGG bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation that aims to significantly reduce government spending across the board.
Rep. Burchett’s proposed amendment to the FSGG bill. Source: House Committee on Appropriations
It’s estimated that Gensler earns north of $300,000 per year for his duties as head of the SEC.
Burchett wasn’t the only lawmaker taking aim at the SEC, with the overall bill aimed at drastically cutting funding to government agencies.
While introducing the bill to the House Rules Committee on Nov. 6, Rep. Steve Womack outlined that the SEC, among other government agencies, had fallen prey to regulatory overreach and were becoming an undue financial burden on the government.
Womack said that the best course of action would be to defund the SEC, to help limit its regulatory “intrusiveness” while forcing the regulator to return focus to its core mission.
“Specifically, we turn off rulemakings at the Securities and Exchange Commission that lack proper cost-benefit analysis and aggregate impact analysis.”
“To be clear, the agencies under our jurisdiction perform important functions; however, many have strayed from their mandate and the results have been a true disservice to the American people,” Womack added.
We are on an unsustainable trajectory.
My bill reins in wasteful Washington spending to address our dire fiscal situation. https://t.co/lWgyvHknQQ
This isn’t the first time that Gensler and his agency have come under fire from U.S. politicians.
On June 12, United States Reps. Warren Davidson and Tom Emmer introduced the SEC Stabilization Act to the House of Representatives, with one of the bill’s primary provisions being one that would remove Gary Gensler as chair of the SEC.
If passed, the bill would fire Gensler and redistribute the power of the agency between the SEC chair and commissioners. It would also create an executive director position and add a sixth commissioner to the agency to prevent any one political party from holding a majority sway.
Davidson and Emmer have long been vocal critics of the Gensler-led SEC, with Emmer calling the SEC Chair a “bad faith regulator” and accusing him of “blindly spraying the crypto community with enforcement actions while completely missing the truly bad actors.”
Crypto-friendly billionaire investor Bill Ackman is considering the possibility that US President Donald Trump may pause the implementation of his controversial proposed tariffs on April 7.
“One would have to imagine that President Donald Trump’s phone has been ringing off the hook. The practical reality is that there is insufficient time for him to make deals before the tariffs are scheduled to take effect,” Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, said in an April 5 X post.
Trump may postpone tariffs to make more deals, says Ackman
“I would, therefore, not be surprised to wake up Monday with an announcement from the President that he was postponing the implementation of the tariffs to give him time to make deals,” Ackman added.
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries, which took effect on April 5. Harsher reciprocal tariffs on trading partners with which the US has the largest trade deficits are scheduled to kick in on April 9.
Ackman — who famously said “crypto is here to stay” after the FTX collapse in November 2022 — said Trump captured the attention of the world and US trading partners, backing the tariffs as necessary after what he called an “unfair tariff regime” that hurt US workers and economy “over many decades.”
Following Trump’s announcement on April 2, the US stock market shed more value during the April 4 trading session than the entire crypto market is currently worth. The fact that crypto held up better than the US stock market caught the attention of both crypto industry supporters and skeptics.
Prominent crypto voices such as BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss also recently showed their support for Trump’s tariffs.
Ackman said a pause would be a logical move by Trump — not just to allow time for closing potential deals but also to give companies of all sizes “time to prepare for changes.” He added:
“The risk of not doing so is that the massive increase in uncertainty drives the economy into a recession, potentially a severe one.”
Ackman said April 7 will be “one of the more interesting days” in US economic history.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.