Departing SEC Chair Gary Gensler Slams Crypto Again—But Says Bitcoin Is Different

As crypto’s sheriff prepares to hang up his spurs, SEC Chair Gary Gensler took the opportunity Tuesday to separate Bitcoin from the rest of the herd, which he says still has to prove it has any true value.

In an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Gensler said that he believes Bitcoin is still a risky bet, but the leading cryptocurrency could morph into a different type of asset as financial market participants worldwide trade Bitcoin in a similar fashion to precious metals like gold.

“I think that Bitcoin is a highly speculative, volatile asset. But with 7 billion people around the globe, 7 billion people want to trade it just like we […] have gold for 10,000 years,” Gensler said. “We have Bitcoin. It might be something else in the future, as well.”

Gensler plans to resign from his leadership position next week, passing off the agency’s reins alongside President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Under Gensler’s watch, the SEC has engaged in what advocates describe as a regulatory blitz, issuing enforcement actions against crypto firms for allegedly violating its rules. 

Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, is poised to strike a relatively crypto-friendly tone if Congress gets behind Trump’s nomination. Among Trump’s early crypto initiatives, Decrypt reported Monday that one could include directing the SEC to get on the same page with other regulators—hashing out differing perspectives for the emergent sector.

On Tuesday, Gensler said that digital assets beyond Bitcoin “need to show their use case and show that they actually have fundamentals underlying them, or they won’t persist.”

As recently as July, CFTC Chair Rostin Behman, said that Bitcoin and Ethereum are commodities that should be regulated by the agency.

For the past four years, Gensler has been reluctant to call anything other than Bitcoin a commodity. In 2023, for example, Gensler said that “only Bitcoin” is a commodity, suggesting assets like Ethereum and Solana may fall under the SEC’s remit.

Last year, however, the SEC approved spot Ethereum ETFs after giving an earlier green light to Bitcoin funds, broadening investors’ access to the coin. The approvals represented a tacit admission that Ethereum is a commodity, and since then, asset managers have filed for products covering other coins, such as Solana and XRP.

During Gensler’s stint Tuesday, Kernen suggested that Gensler “loved” Bitcoin as SEC chair, going as far to say that Gensler may have been personally opposed to “those other coins.”

Gensler said he’s never owned Bitcoin, nor any other cryptocurrency. He also stood by the notion that “the public needs disclosure” in order to make informed decisions.

On Capitol Hill in 2023, Gensler sidestepped questions regarding Ethereum’s regulatory status, prompting allegations that the SEC chair may have tried to mislead lawmakers.

While Gensler’s successor may be more willing to take the question head-on, it appears that Gensler’s belief that Bitcoin is different will persist into his final days at the SEC.

Edited by Andrew Hayward