Gary Gensler
SEC Chair Gary Gensler refused to clarify the status of Ether as a security or a commodity during a Congress hearing last year. U.S. House Committee on Financial Services YouTube | Oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission U.S. House Committee on Financial Services YouTube Channel/Screenshot

KEY POINTS

  • The SEC under Gensler has dragged a sizeable number of crypto firms to court
  • 10x Research's Thielen believes Gensler will quit early next year – over a year before the end of his term
  • Mark Cuban and Brad Garlinghouse have said Gensler will cost Biden the 2024 election

U.S. President Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, and his exit is expected to have significant ramifications on the Democratic Party, as well as on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose chief Gary Gensler has become quite disliked by a rising group of voters: cryptocurrency users.

Gensler's legacy in the eyes of crypto

Gensler has been accused of being anti-crypto by some of the industry's key players and figures. Under his leadership, the SEC has taken multiple crypto firms to court and has ultimately lost some of them, including its case against Debt Box, which the court found was handled in "bad faith."

One of the biggest issues that the crypto sector has had on Gensler was his contradictory statements about Ether ($ETH), the Ethereum network's native token. He has yet to clarify the digital asset's status as a security or a commodity, even as spot $ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are expected to go live this week.

SEC Chair to quit in 2025?

Markus Thielen, the founder of digital assets research firm 10x Research, wrote in a Sunday note that Gensler may resign from his post now that Biden has exited the race and there is "no credible candidate" that can "seriously challenge Donald Trump."

Thielen said it has been a historical trend that the SEC chief resigned whenever a new administration enters the White House. "The November election appears to have been decided without a single vote. For Bitcoin, a pro-crypto administration will enter the White House," he argued.

Gensler's term won't end until June 5, 2026. However, Thielen believes the SEC chair will resign, likely by January or February 2025. Biden will finish his term at around the same time.

The Gensler curse?

Billionaire Mark Cuban said last month – when Biden was refusing to step down amid increasing calls for him to exit the race – that Gensler's legacy in the crypto space could cost Biden the 2024 election.

Cuban, a known crypto advocate, said at the time that Biden would have to "choose" between the SEC chair and crypto voters. The same could be true for whoever will replace the incumbent president for the Democratic nomination.

Some two weeks after Cuban's projection, Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of fintech giant Ripple, said "Gensler will cause Biden to lose the election."

A vague future

Just as crypto's future remains unclear due to the ever-changing views of politicians regarding the burgeoning industry, Gensler's fate before his term ends has also become unclear with Biden's withdrawal.

On the other hand, the crypto sector may have a slight upper hand, considering how Trump has recently become more vocally supportive of Bitcoin and the broader digital assets space, and his chosen VP, J.D. Vance, has once slammed Gensler's enforcement-first approach toward the industry.

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