“I feel very good about what we did.”

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler isn’t holding back on his views on the cryptocurrency industry as he prepares to head out the door.

“A lot of people in the crypto space don’t adhere to our time-tested laws,” he told Yahoo Finance in an interview on Tuesday, describing many digital assets as “highly speculative.”

“For some assets, you have to ask what their real use case is; what is their proposed value?” he said.

Gensler has spent most of his tenure clashing with the biggest players in the cryptocurrency world as the SEC filed lawsuits against major digital asset companies, including US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (currency).

Coinbase was not shy about responding. Its chief legal officer is Paul Grewal He hinted at the disagreement On X day last November after the SEC chairman announced his plans to leave on January 20.

“My mom always told me if I don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” Grewal said in his post. “So I’ll sit in this place.”

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to fire Gensler as one of many Promises For the crypto industry. After Gensler submitted his resignation He noticesThe next administration said he would be replaced Famous cryptocurrency lawyer Paul Atkins If it is confirmed.

For many years, Atkins has made it clear that he favors clearer regulations for cryptocurrencies that do not stifle innovation or impose unnecessary censorship.

Gensler on Tuesday refuted the idea that the SEC’s approach to regulating cryptocurrencies played a role in Democrats losing the 2024 presidential election, citing other issues such as inflation and the economy in general as deciding factors.

Despite his concerns about cryptocurrencies, Gensler allowed BlackRock and 10 other money managers to launch spot bitcoin trading funds, allowing ordinary investors to gain exposure to the world’s largest cryptocurrency without having to own it.

It was a move he said was influenced by the court’s ruling against the SEC, one of several court decisions that did not go his way.

And just this week, a federal appeals court ruled that the SEC needs to better explain why it rejected a request from Coinbase to develop regulations to cover the world of cryptocurrencies. The industry wanted a new set of rules governing the assets overseen by which agency.

Gensler did not back down on that front, saying Tuesday that “dislike the law and dislike the rules does not mean there are no laws and rules.”

The SEC issued some new actions this week, including $45 million in civil fines to settle a series of regulatory violations by Robinhood Securities LLC and Robinhood Financial LLC.

The story continues