US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler has whipped out the six-shooter again, taking a dead-eyed aim at the crypto industry’s stablecoins.

Gensler was speaking with The Washington Post today and made it clear his badged band of regulators have “robust authorities” to tackle the crypto industry: “And we’re going to use them.”

He also reiterated, for about the thousandth time, that most cryptos, in his view, are securities.

As for the Wild West analogy, it’s a go-to one for the tough-talking SEC sheriff…

“We’ve got a lot of casinos here in the Wild West,” Gensler said. “And the poker chip is these stablecoins.”

 

US Treasury-backed stablecoins report

The head regulator told the famous news organisation that the SEC is in the process of writing a report on stablecoins, being overseen by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Prediction… the word “danger” will be used a lot. Probably “systemic” and “risk”, too. They might want to have a thesaurus handy.

Along with the Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, Gensler and Yellen form a powerful crypto-road-blocking triumvirate. And you can probably lump in the Fed’s Jerome Powell, too, waiting to be subbed on from the bench.

Gary “High Noon” Gensler. (Note, it’s a meme, not an actual Gensler quote.) Source: Getty Images

Gensler also said the SEC is working with regulators in the banking sector to obtain even more authority from Congress to regulate stablecoins. He said the commission needs to coordinate with other financial regulators to ensure they aren’t letting any matters “fall through the cracks”.

“History tells us that private forms of money don’t last long,” said Gensler, adding that the US experimented with private money in the “wildcat banking era” from the 1830s to the 1860s.

“This all had a lot of cost, a lot of problems,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a long-term viability for 5,000 or 6,000 private forms of money.”

https://twitter.com/CanteringClark/status/1440430349054402563

 

‘A lot of people are going to get hurt’

Gensler’s latest comments come roughly a week after his and Senator Warren’s double act at the Senate Banking Committee, where he contended that crypto exchanges such as Coinbase should register with the SEC.

“Those platforms should come in, and they should figure out how to register,” Gensler said.

“I do really fear…there’s going to be a problem with lending platforms or trading platforms, and frankly, when that happens, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

 

Wen ETF?

And finally, in other SEC/crypto-related news, erm, best of luck with your non-futures-backed Exchange Traded Fund application, Invesco/Galaxy…

 

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