Billionaire and former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban hosted a meeting in Washington, D.C., with cryptocurrency leaders and the senior advisor to President Joe Biden during which he called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to terminate its chairman.
Cuban and others in the industry have criticized Gary Gensler over regulations and forcing many crypto exchanges to register with the SEC as trading platforms.
Cuban has long been a supporter of cryptocurrency and revealed in a January informal Ask Me Anything on X that his crypto portfolio consists of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon and Injective. Through Cuban, the Mavs have also begun accepting Dogecoin and once formed a five-year partnership with now-defunct crypto platform, Voyager Digital.
After the downfall and bankruptcies of crypto platforms like FTX, BlockFi and Voyager, the SEC began cracking down harder on cryptocurrencies, making them more subject to enforcement by the SEC. In 2023, the regulator brought 46 enforcement actions related to crypto against 124 defendants, the most since 2013.
“The crypto industry’s record of failures, frauds and bankruptcies is not because we do not have rules or because the rules are unclear,” Gensler said in a statement the same day the House passed a bill with more robust regulations on cryptocurrencies. “It’s because many players in the crypto industry don’t play by the rules.”
The event, held mere steps from the White House at the Willard InterContinental Washington D.C. hotel, was co-hosted by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California.
The invite-only event also included U.S. Reps. Joe Neguse, D-Colorado; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York; SkyBridge Capital chief and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci and many more.
In an emailed interview with The Dallas Morning News, Cuban said he believes Gensler has held back cryptocurrency from its full potential due to regulations.
“I don’t believe Mr. Gensler has protected any investors in the crypto space or elsewhere for that matter. His approach at the SEC is to litigate to regulate. Which means it is impossible for crypto companies to have bright line rules to follow,” he said. “This is evidenced by the fact that there are currently zero companies that have issued tokens for crypto apps. Not a single one. And that’s not for the lack of trying.”
Others at the meeting were not as kind to Anita Dunn, the senior advisor to Biden who was also in attendance, and regulators.
“You guys suck on crypto,” one attendee told Dunn, according to FOX Business.
Cuban, a vocal supporter of Biden, has also said in the past that he believes Gensler could deter pro-crypto voters from voting for Biden in this November’s election.
Do you really think he understands anything about crypto? Beyond saying he made money selling NFTs?
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 9, 2024
Neither of them does.
And I have said many times that Biden has to choose between Gensler or crypto voters or it could cost him the Whitehouse
Despite Cuban saying that the meeting went well and that there were enough lawmakers to successfully send across his pro-crypto message to lawmakers from the House, Senate and White House, he still wants to see Gensler out of a job.
“You all have permission to quote me saying that Biden should fire Gary Gensler,” Cuban said during the meeting, according to FOX Business.
