Although, oddly, he's never done a crypto transaction.
He's probably really good at doing standard SEC things, but I'm really starting to question his role in the cryptodigital economy.
As Matt Levine wrote on his newsletter, saying that the SEC must have traded crypto to regulate it is like saying the DEA should have used meth to regulate meth -- if you think the thing is bad, then obviously you should understand it, then ban it, without using it yourself.
Now, people can disagree whether the thing is bad, but it would be foolish to assume that the SEC doesn't know how cryptocurrency works. If you look at the career paths and previous work of most of the top bureaucrats at the SEC, you'll see that they were usually involved in a great deal of legislation or had prominent positions in industry doing real projects.
I am being entirely serious when I say that I trust a meth addict more than I do the DEA to create or impose any sort of regulation.
Have you ever met a botanist who's never touched a plant?
A better analogy might be: would you think it strange that someone teaching a C programming class has never compiled a program?
would you think it is strange that someone who's teaching a C programming class that has never used a computer?
'Imagine someone trying to bring a injunction against Liberty Reserve without owning any any stock in the company or having ever used their products'.
Everyone has money. Not everyone has cancer.
Anyone who takes cancer drugs, is doing research. There is no "cure" for cancer (yet).
That said, the overall conversation about whether ETH is a security, or not, has been going on with Gensler, for years.