At the time Gensler was offered to be an advisor on Binance, he was attending MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
According to Binance attorney and CEO Changpeng Zhao, SEC chief Gary Gensler was offered to be an advisor to Binance’s parent company in 2019. Interestingly, Gensler has been leading the campaign against the crypto industry for the past year. Binance and other crypto companies are currently under the radar of the US regulator due to violations of securities laws. The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly expressed his bearish stance against crypto firms and cryptocurrencies. He said in March that just because a cryptocurrency exchange claims to be an eligible custodian does not mean it is.
The SEC chief may become an advisor to Binance in 2019
News of the offer for Gensler to act as an advisor to Binance has surfaced in the wake of recent filings against the company, which include violations of securities laws, breaches of KYC rules, and more. According to documents provided by the committee on Wednesday, two law firms representing Binance, Gibson Dunn and Latham & Watkins, alleged that the SEC chief made the offer in several conversations with Binance and Zhao executives in March 2019. Gensler also met with the CEO, the filing added. Binance is in Japan for lunch later the same month.
At the time Gensler was offered to be an advisor to Binance, he was not yet a head of the SEC. He taught at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subsequently, President Joe Biden appointed him to chair the committee in 2021. However, Gensler has gone hard on the cryptocurrency market, targeting and slamming several companies with lawsuits over allegations of selling unregistered securities. It was a dramatic week for the cryptocurrency industry as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed 13 charges against Binance and Zhao. The regulator claimed that the company did not register as a stock exchange and brokerage transaction. It also alleged that Binance and Zhao were putting investors at risk to fund their own pockets.
Zhao-Gensler Relationship Prior to the SEC’s Crypto Crackdown
Moreover, the lawyers said, Chow kept in touch with Gensler after the lunch meeting in March. Also, the head of Binance agreed to Genlser’s request by granting an interview as part of a crypto course he was taking at MIT. Later in the year, the future SEC chairman shared a version of his intention certificate with chow. He was going to testify before the House Financial Services Committee. Testifying before the House of Representatives on the Libra cryptocurrency and Facebook’s proposed but failed Calibra wallet, the MIT professor said:
“I do not recommend any financial, technology, blockchain or other companies, nor do I own any cryptocurrency.”
After Gensler proposed the advisor idea in 2019, and later met with Zhao, the SEC launched investigations and lawsuits against Binance US and Binance in 2020 and 2020 respectively.
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Ibukun is a crypto/financial writer interested in passing on relevant information, using uncomplicated words to reach all types of audiences. Apart from writing, she loves watching movies, cooking, and exploring restaurants in the city of Lagos where she is staying.
