The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has released its annual enforcement reports for fiscal year 2024, noting a decrease in the number of actions taken but a massive rise in financial remedies to $8.2 billion, with a greater percentage coming from issues settled with cryptocurrency firms operating in the United States.
Notably, the SEC’s attack on crypto firms is already coming to an end. The incoming 47th President of the U.S., Donald Trump, has revealed plans to assign a crypto-friendly chairman to lead the agency in January 2025.
Over $5B From Crypto Firms
A highlight of the SEC’s enforcement and financial remedies is its case with Terraform Labs, a startup founded by Do Kwon and Daniel Chin to develop the Terra blockchain protocol and payment platform. Terraform Labs also launched TerraUSD stablecoin.
However, its operations didn’t last long, as TerraUSD couldn’t maintain a constant $1 price, leading investors to lose $40 billion. The SEC found Kwon and his establishment guilty of civil fraud and reached a settlement agreement of $4.47 billion.
Terraform’s case covered about 56% of the financial remedies the SEC obtained in 2024.
In a recent case with crypto lender Genesis Global Capital in Q1 2024, the agency charged it with offering and selling unregistered securities through its Gemini Earn program. Consenting to the charges, Genesis agreed to settle the SEC with a $21 million fine.
In addition, the SEC has many ongoing cases with various crypto firms and their operations in the U.S., including Ripple Labs, the digital payment network that launched the XRP token, crypto exchanges Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, and others.
SEC Crypto Attack Nears End
With the recently concluded U.S. presidential election, the hopes of a crypto-friendly SEC have risen as the president-elect has promised to achieve this.
Notably, anti-crypto SEC chair Gary Gensler will step down on January 20, 2025. While overseeing the financial agency, he opposed the crypto ecosystem. Therefore, the community sees his resignation as a big win for the industry, as it may pave the way for more crypto firms to operate freely in America.
Meanwhile, the agency has approved Coincheck as the first Japanese crypto exchange listed on the Nasdaq global stock market.
