Last year, it received a $6.4 billion fine, and the SEC added a budget of tens of millions of dollars, with a total budget of $2.4 billion for the entire year 2024.

The Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, once again described the illegal and disorderly activities in the crypto space as "the wild west." He has requested a budget increase of tens of millions of dollars for the SEC from lawmakers, but has also been questioned about what regulatory actions the SEC has taken regarding FTX.

SEC Requests Additional $100 Million Budget

Gary Gensler attended the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on July 20th, where he expressed support for a bipartisan proposal passed by the committee last week, which would provide the SEC with a budget of $23.64 billion for next year. However, he also requested an additional $72 million to be allocated.

According to the speech, Gary Gensler mentioned that the SEC's total staff count in 2023 would be 4,685, with half of them focused on enforcement actions and examinations. With the additional budget allocation, the SEC could expand by 170 positions, bringing the total full-time staff to 5,139.

He stated:

We see rampant misconduct in the crypto market akin to the Wild West, where investors are putting hard-earned money into highly speculative asset classes. With the funding scale sufficient to carry out SEC's mission, we can become stronger advocates for the American public, further curb fraud, market manipulation, and reduce low systematic risk.

Gary Gensler also highlighted the significant performance of the SEC in 2022, where fines collected amounted to as much as $6.4 billion.

Additionally, in supplementary matters, Gensler mentioned the increasing volume of SEC's data analysis operations and requested an additional budget of $393 million to support the SEC's data analysis, cybersecurity, and other technological needs, emphasizing that this is still relatively modest compared to the expenditures of some major market participants.

Where Was the SEC During the FTX Collapse?

CoinDesk appears to be the only blockchain media present, where they excerpted a segment of Republican Senator John Kennedy questioning Gary Gensler. He raised several questions to Gensler, such as:

1. Why did you and the SEC allow a scam like FTX to happen?

2. You repeatedly emphasized SEC's authority to regulate cryptocurrencies before the FTX collapse, why didn't the SEC intervene earlier, where was the SEC?

3. Continuing from the second point, why didn't the SEC dispatch commissioners to investigate FTX before the incident? SBF couldn't possibly refuse the SEC, right?

Gary Gensler mentioned that the crypto space is typically intertwined with numerous businesses, mostly offshore institutions, and rife with fraud, but the process from initiating an investigation to formal indictment or settlement is time-consuming, averaging 23 months for the SEC.

John Kennedy repeatedly questioned why the SEC didn't timely expose the FTX scam, to which Gary Gensler emphasized:

I believe the American public also wants the SEC to conduct investigations based on facts and laws. We issue subpoenas to institutions, then they will hire lawyers and respond to the SEC, which indeed takes time.