BY DAYO ADESULU
The coast is now clear for cryptocurrency sector to soar globally as the United States Senate has now confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee, Professor Gary Gensler, the new Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Gary Gensler 64, is an American academic, former investment banker, a cryptocurrency professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.and former government official.
Before his confirmation, Gensler previously led the Biden–Harris transition‘s Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities Regulators agency review team.
The MIT professor classes at the MIT Sloan School of Management included blockchain technology, digital currencies, and financial technology.
During the voting at the Upper House, the Senate voted 53-45 in favour of Gary Gensler to confirm his nomination as the US SEC chairman.
Subsequently, the four commissioners at the SEC have released a statement welcoming the agency’s new chairman.
The statement read: ”A warm congratulations to Gary Gensler on his Senate confirmation to become Chair of the SEC … We welcome him back to public service and look forward to working together to execute our vital mission.
Asides Gensler being a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, he is also a co-director of Fintech@CSAIL and a senior advisor to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative. He taught blockchain technology, digital currencies, financial technology, and public policy.
A former Goldman Sachs executive, Gensler also served as the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from May 2009 to January 2014.
Gensler in March disclosed his policies on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate banking committee.
“These innovations have been a catalyst for change,” noting that “if confirmed at the SEC, I’d work with fellow commissioners to promote new innovation but also, at the core, ensure investor protection,” he said.
As a MIT Professor of crypto, many people are of the opinion that under his leadership watch, the commission will finally approve a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) this year.
SEC Commission Hester Peirce is hopeful that with Gensler as chairman, the SEC can “build a good regulatory framework” suitable for the cryptocurrency market.
