Waters Demands Oversight Hearing For SEC’s Crypto Stance

US Representative Maxine Waters has called for a hearing with Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Paul Atkins, highlighting concerns over the agency’s dismissal of crypto cases, and nine other points of contention.  

In a letter on Sunday to French Hill, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Waters argued that a hearing was well overdue highlighting what she sees as “questionable policy changes” at the SEC. 

“Chair Gensler testified before the Committee twice during his first year. Despite having a clear obligation to oversee the SEC, the Committee has not held a single hearing with Chairman Atkins, despite the agency’s rapid, significant, and questionable policy shifts during the Trump Administration,” she wrote.  

Waters outlined 10 points that she thinks the oversight meeting needs to address, including the dismissal of major crypto enforcement actions, the SEC’s independence and politicization, and weakening market surveillance.

She claimed that the SEC “has terminated or stayed major enforcement actions against multiple crypto companies and individuals that had been credibly accused of major violations of our securities laws, including Coinbase, Binance, and Justin Sun,” adding:

“In some of these cases, the defendants had announced that the SEC had terminated enforcement actions even before the Commission had taken the actual vote to do so.”

Waters said the FSC needs to scrutinize the agency to find out exactly how it “intends to deter fraud and manipulation.”

Atkins, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, took over from former chair Gary Gensler in April. Under his tenure the SEC has taken a friendlier approach to crypto, with lawsuits and investigations shelved, relaxed rules for crypto exchange-traded funds and proactive sentiment toward crypto regulation with Project Crypto. 

Related: David Sacks calls CFTC, SEC picks a crypto regulation ‘dream team‘

Waters keen to prevent crypto ‘fraud’ 

This is far from the first time Waters has criticized the crypto industry and the Republican Party’s approach to it. In October she expressed outrage at the pardoning of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao.