Former US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler reiterated his caution to investors regarding the risks associated with cryptocurrencies, labeling much of the market as “highly speculative” in a recent Bloomberg interview on Tuesday.
He positioned Bitcoin (BTC) as relatively closer to a commodity while emphasizing that most tokens do not provide “a dividend” or “typical returns.”
Gensler portrayed the current market situation as a reckoning that aligns with his previous warnings during his tenure, asserting that the global public’s interest in cryptocurrencies does not correspond to fundamental values.
“For all the thousands of other tokens, excluding the stablecoins linked to US dollars, one must question the fundamentals. What’s the foundation? The investing public must be conscious of these risks,” he stated.
Gensler’s record and industry backlash
Gensler served as the SEC’s chair from April 17, 2021, to January 20, 2025, championing a stringent enforcement agenda that involved lawsuits against significant crypto intermediaries and the belief that many tokens qualify as unregistered securities.
Related: House Republicans to investigate Gary Gensler’s deleted messages
The industry reacted negatively to prominent actions against exchanges and staking programs, along with the stance that most token issuers violated registration regulations.
During Gensler’s leadership, Coinbase faced a lawsuit from the SEC for operating as an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency, and for offering an unregistered staking-as-a-service program. Kraken was also compelled to terminate its US staking program and pay a $30 million fine.
The politicization of crypto
When questioned about the politicization of crypto, including mentions of the Trump family’s involvement by the Bloomberg interviewer, the former chair dismissed the notion.
“No, I don’t believe so,” he asserted, claiming it concerns capital market fairness and “commonsense rules of the road,” rather than a “Democrat versus Republican issue.”
He continued: “When you buy and sell a stock or a bond, you seek various information,” and “the same treatment as larger investors.” That embodies the fairness at the core of US capital markets.
Related: Coinbase files FOIA to uncover the costs of the SEC’s ‘war on crypto’
ETFs and the drift to centralization
Discussing ETFs, Gensler remarked that finance “since antiquity… tends towards centralization,” making it unsurprising that an ecosystem born decentralized has evolved to become “more integrated and more centralized.”
He observed that investors can express themselves in gold and silver through exchange-traded funds, and that during his term, the first US Bitcoin futures ETFs were sanctioned, linking parts of crypto’s infrastructure more closely to traditional markets.
Gensler’s recent remarks draw a well-known distinction: Bitcoin belongs to a different category, while most other tokens remain, in his opinion, speculative and lacking in fundamentals.
Even post-tenure, his framing will resonate in courts, compliance departments, and allocation committees evaluating BTC’s status against ongoing regulatory caution regarding altcoins.
Magazine: Solana vs Ethereum ETFs, Facebook’s influence on Bitwise — Hunter Horsley
