Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has come under scrutiny for promoting the cryptocurrency Algorand (ALGO) at various public events since 2019. This has sent shock waves among critics who label Gensler as a hypocrite, given his ongoing regulatory crackdown on other cryptocurrencies.

Computer scientist Silvio Micali is the founder of Algorand and the chair has apparently spoken highly of him "Gensler praised Micali, a Turing Award winner at MIT, and said the new technology has “performance, [so] you could create Uber on top of it”. Gensler is also now an instructor at MIT Open Learning in the “Blockchain and Money” course.

The anti-crypto stance of Gensler has been criticised by another SEC colleague. Commissioner Hester Peirce has said “Rather than embracing the promise of new technology as we have done in the past, here we propose to embrace stagnation, force centralization, urge expatriation, and welcome extinction of new technology.”

The SEC is known for legal proceedings against those found to have committed misrepresentation or omission of material facts in the offer and sale of securities. And, last year, reality star Kim Kardashian was targeted by the SEC, who accused her of touting a crypto security.

On Monday, the SEC named six crypto tokens listed on Bittrex as securities. Algorand was among them. And, according to the SEC, these tokens are to be considered securities under US law because investors largely sought to make a profit from them.

The same incident has led to the inclusion of Inspector General Deborah J. Jeffrey in the SEC. It is yet to be seen if Jeffrey will investigate Gensler's acclaim of Algorand as a security.

Overall, Gensler's promotion of Algorand, a token officially recognized as a security by the SEC, has prompted numerous questions about the nature of his involvement in blockchain technology. The result remains to be seen.



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