Ripple boss Brad Garlinghouse has openly criticized Gary Gensler, the Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), suggesting his actions could jeopardize President Joe Biden’s chances in the November election. This comes as Biden’s presumptive Republican challenger, Donald Trump, has actively shown his support for crypto.
Garlinghouse: Gensler Will Cause Biden To Lose Presidency
Speaking at the Bloomberg Invest Summit on Tuesday, Gensler declined to comment on the upcoming election or the potential impact of crypto on it. “I don’t speak about elections,” he posited when asked about the convergence of cryptocurrency and politics. He was responding to questions about former President Donald Trump’s increasing support for cryptocurrencies and criticism of his commission from prominent billionaire entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban.
Gensler then claimed that the crypto sector is “a field where the leading lights from a couple of years ago are either in jail, about to go to jail, or awaiting extradition.”
“That’s a field right now where the public has really been harmed. And there’s significant non-compliance in the field,” the SEC chief added.
Ripple’s Garlinghouse slammed Gensler’s remarks as “absolute nonsense.” “And this slander about ‘all crypto execs going to jail’ from the man who completely missed FTX (and actually cozied up to SBF) and wasn’t even invited to the DOJ announcement about Binance,” he continued.
According to Garlinghouse, Gensler would have been fired a long time ago if he was really “working for the American people” as he has contended. “Gensler will cause Biden to lose the election,” he summarized.
Spot Ether ETF Approval Process ‘Going Smoothly’
On the topic of the highly-awaited spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Gensler also provided an update. He didn’t reveal the exact launch timing of the Ether products, but, he indicated that the progress was “going smoothly”.
“It’s really about the asset managers making the full disclosure so that those registration statements can go effective,” he postulated.
“What is in front of us — and it’s done at a staff level — is what’s called the registration statements, the disclosure statements,” Gensler added. “Again, these disclosures are really important. They’re important to investors making investment decisions.”
The SEC approved 19b-4 forms for Ethereum ETFs from eight applicants last month. As reported by ZyCrypto, the SEC boss previously stated that the ETH-based investment vehicles would start trading on U.S. exchanges by the end of this summer.
