Billionaire Tim Draper Says Gary Gensler Damaging the US With Anti-Crypto Policies, Calls for New Way of Regulation

Billionaire Tim Draper says the Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is damaging the US with policies that stifle crypto innovation. 

In a new interview with Fox Business’s The Claman Countdown, Tim Draper says the SEC and Gary Gensler should have no oversight on crypto technology. 

“[The SEC] has no relevance to crypto. It needs to be regulated in a new way. What’s America going to look like in 40 years? It’s going to be a total wasteland. There’s going to be no technology.

Crypto is coming. AI is coming. What is this new fear about spreading technologies? They’re great for us. We’ve got smartphones. We’ve got Teslas. We’ve got all these amazing new technologies.”

Draper, an early Bitcoin (BTC) investor, says that there aren’t any crypto firms who expect zero regulation, and most are happy to abide by clear guidelines. On the other hand, the billionaire says that the US regulatory climate is confusing and discouraging the crypto industry from innovating. 

“If there was a fraud [in FTX], and I think there probably was, then you have a job to go do. But you don’t just start shooting randomly at any company with new technology. That makes absolutely no sense.

And sure, there are certain people who are doing things that you clearly don’t want to have done in the US. We all have to play by a certain set of rules. We play by those rules. We always believed in those rules in the US. But now, it’s like we don’t know what the rules are, and [Gensler] can enforce whatever he wants and whenever he wants. That is going to drive all the innovation right out of the country. It makes no sense at all. He is damaging our country if he is going to do that. 

Coinbase – all they wanted to do was abide by the law. They kept writing the SEC, ‘What can we do here? Etc.’ The SEC let them go public. But somehow, now, they’re going, ‘You’re somehow violating things.”

Draper also commends Brian Armstrong for his role as CEO of Coinbase, the biggest crypto exchange by volume in the US, which was charged by the SEC last week for alleged securities violations. 

“Brian has done everything right. He’s done everything according to the books. He’s got a new innovation – it’s Bitcoin and crypto – these amazing things that are going to transform the global economy. We’re going to see extraordinary things come out of these.

Whether or not that happens in the US is going to be up to your regulators.”