A Democratic congressman has called for an independent investigation into the inability of the U.S. SEC to prevent the FTX disaster. Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) asked the GAO (Government Accountability Office) to conduct an independent review of everything that happened in the SEC within the months leading up to the collapse. A strongly worded letter by Representative Torres took umbridge with SEC Chair Gary Gensler for claiming exclusive regulatory authority over cryptocurrency exchanges while also seemingly failing to properly regulate them. Torres claimed that if the SEC has the authority which Mr. Gensler claims, it would certainly have been able to prevent the biggest crypto Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. The letter indicated that it is extremely irresponsible to assert authority while avoiding accountability, which the SEC seems to be doing. In the past, the SEC has had no problems putting the hammer down on the crypto industry, as was the case with the still ongoing Ripple Labs lawsuit. In October, the SEC also fined Kim Kardashian $1.26 million for reportedly promoting EthereumMax, an exchange which the agency considers an unregistered security.
