The United States securities regulator chief has hinted he would be open to a rebooted crypto exchange FTX — as long as its new leadership stays within the bounds of the law.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s comments were made in response to reports that Tom Farley, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, is now in the running to buy the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange founded by now-convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
“If Tom or anybody else wanted to be in this field, I would say, ‘Do it within the law,’” Gensler said in an interview at DC Fintech Week on Nov. 8, according to CNBC. He added:
“Build the trust of investors in what you’re doing and ensure that you’re doing the proper disclosures — and also that you’re not commingling all these functions, trading against your customers or using their crypto assets for your own purposes.”
Farley is the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bullish, which was founded in 2021.
Fintech startup Figure Technologies and cryptocurrency venture capital firm Proof Group are the other two bidders in the mix to buy FTX, according to a Nov. 8 report by the Wall Street Journal, who cited people familiar with the matter.
3 FTX bidders in the Auction are:
Bullish – Crypto exchange run by Tom Farley Figure Technologies – fintech start up and Proof Group – crypto venture-capital firm
Three bidders will be leading a consortium
— Sunil (FTX Creditor Champion) (@sunil_trades) November 8, 2023
The winner could restart the exchange after its planned exit from bankruptcy next year, according to the WSJ report.
Crypto still has its fair share of fraudsters, says Gensler
Meanwhile, in light of Bankman-Fried’s conviction, Gensler said the cryptocurrency industry is still rife with fraudsters and suggested more work needs to be done to keep them away from investors.
“Think about how many actors in this space are not complying right now with international sanctions and money laundering laws and are using crypto for nefarious or bad actions. He said, without naming individuals or companies. Gensler added:
“If it’s a non-compliant fraudster, why would we want them in our markets?”
Despite the SEC’s crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry, U.S. representative Tom Emmer has previously called out Gensler and the securities regulator in December for missing the FTX, Terra-LUNA, Celsius and Voyager failures which collectively wiped out billions of dollars from cryptocurrency investors.
JUST IN: US Congressman Tom Emmer says SEC Chair Gary Gensler is as ineffective as he is incompetent.
Emmer went as far to suggest Gensler helped Bankman-Fried gain a “regulatory monopoly” on the cryptocurrency industry prior to FTX’s collapse, but the statement wasn’t backed by any evidence.
Strategy’s Michael Saylor and BitMine’s Tom Lee are among 18 industry leaders who will look at ways to pass the BITCOIN Act and enable budget-neutral ways to buy Bitcoin.
It was a prescient and – as it turned out – incredibly optimistic sign off from Peter Mandelson after eight years as Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.
“I hope I survive in my next job for at least half that period”, the Financial Times reported him as saying – with a smile.
As something of a serial sackee from government posts, we know Sir Keir Starmer was, to an extent, aware of the risks of appointing the ‘Prince of Darkness’ as his man in Washington.
But in his first interview since he gave the ambassador his marching orders, the prime minister said if he had “known then what I know now” then he would not have given him the job.
For many Labour MPs, this will do little to answer questions about the slips in political judgement that led Downing Street down this disastrous alleyway.
Like the rest of the world, Sir Keir Starmer did know of Lord Mandelson’s friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he sent him to Washington.
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The business secretary spelt out the reasoning for that over the weekend saying that the government judged it “worth the risk”.
Image: Keir Starmer welcomes Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte to Downing Street.
Pic: PA
This is somewhat problematic.
As you now have a government which – after being elected on the promise to restore high standards – appears to be admitting that previous indiscretions can be overlooked if the cause is important enough.
Package that up with other scandals that have resulted in departures – Louise Haigh, Tulip Siddiq, Angela Rayner – and you start to get a stink that becomes hard to shift.
But more than that, the events of the last week again demonstrate an apparent lack of ability in government to see round corners and deal with crises before they start knocking lumps out of the Prime Minister.
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‘Had I known then, what I know now, I’d have never appointed him’ Starmer said.
Remember, for many the cardinal sin here was not necessarily the original appointment of Mandelson (while eyebrows were raised at the time, there was nowhere near the scale of outrage we’ve had in the last week with many career diplomats even agreeing the with logic of the choice) but the fact that Sir Keir walked into PMQs and gave the ambassador his full throated backing when it was becoming clear to many around Westminster that he simply wouldn’t be able to stay in post.
The explanation from Downing Street is essentially that a process was playing out, and you shouldn’t sack an ambassador based on a media enquiry alone.
But good process doesn’t always align with good politics.
Something this barrister-turned-politician may now be finding out the hard way.