Gary Gensler, the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, has called on Congress to give his agency additional powers to protect investors in “Wild West” cryptocurrency markets that are “rife with fraud, scams and abuse”.
Gensler spoke on Tuesday at the Aspen Security Forum as US authorities scramble to respond to the explosive growth of the crypto market, which he said has a purported value of about $1.6tn, with more than 75 tokens worth at least $1bn each.
Gensler said he saw few signs crypto assets were catching on as a medium of exchange, apart from their use in ransomware attacks or “to skirt our laws with respect to anti-money laundering, sanctions, [and] tax collection”.