The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler will resign from the regulator come 2025.
“I thank President Biden for entrusting me with this incredible responsibility. The SEC has met our mission and enforced the law without fear or favor,” said Gensler in a press release on Thursday.
Gensler announced he would leave his post starting noon on January 20, 2025. While he did not give a reason behind his decision, his resignation will come on the same day as President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Trump has previously said on his campaign trail that if elected, he would remove Gensler from his post.
Gensler, most widely known for his aggressive stance on cryptocurrencies, was appointed as SEC chair by President Joe Biden in April 2021. The majority of Republican Senators had opposed Gensler’s nomination at the time, arguing that under his leadership, the agency could overstep its authority based on his appetite for regulating company disclosure on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.
Gensler would go on to impose a stricter attitude on cryptocurrencies, likening it to “the Wild West” during an Aspen Security Forum in 2021. “This asset class is rife with fraud, scams, and abuse in certain applications. There’s a great deal of hype and spin about how crypto assets work. In many cases, investors aren’t able to get rigorous, balanced, and complete information. If we don’t address these issues, I worry a lot of people will be hurt,” he said at the time.
The regulator was also involved in a high-profile quarrel with Grayscale in an effort to block bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ended up siding with Grayscale, and the SEC later approved 11 Spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, opening the investment vehicles to behemoths like BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and Franklin Templeton. Today, billions of dollars have flowed through the funds.
Ahead of the new administration in January, the Investment Company Institute (ICI) earlier this week wrote a letter to Gensler urging the agency pause compliance dates on new rules. The institute argued that incorporating new changes now would complicate matters as the upcoming administration steps in.
“In light of the recent election, ICI requests that you suspend the compliance dates of certain recent regulatory actions, halt work on not-yet-finalized rulemaking, and extend soon-to-expire relief that would have a significant impact on registered investment companies and their shareholders and investment advisers and their clients,” said ICI President and CEO Eric Pan in the letter.
In a response to the letter, the SEC stated that it has “different clients than the ICI” and “has no intention of suspending its work on behalf of American investors and issuers.”
Gensler’s resignation comes one year before the end of his appointment. SEC commissioners are subject to five-year terms and cannot be fired by the president, but recent years have shown that most step down once a presidential party has changed.
Gensler was formerly chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, leading the Obama Administration’s reform of the $400 trillion swaps market. Earlier in his career, Gensler worked at Goldman Sachs.
SEE ALSO:
2024 Likely to See Rise in Bitcoin Allocation to Retirement Accounts: Study
Cetera Latest Big Wealth Manager to Jump on Spot Bitcoin ETF Bandwagon
SEC Approves 11 Spot Bitcoin ETFs, Opening Floodgates
Amanda Umpierrez is the Managing Editor of 401(k) Specialist magazine. She is a financial services reporter with over six years of experience and a passion for telling stories and reporting news. Amanda received her degree in journalism and government and politics at St. John’s University. She is originally from Queens, New York, but now resides in Denver, Colorado with her partner. In her free time, Amanda enjoys running, cooking, and watching the latest drama show.
