WASHINGTON—Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler defended his agency’s crackdown on cryptocurrency markets, saying that he had never seen an industry so routinely break securities laws. “I’ve been around finance for 40 years, in one way or the other,” Mr. Gensler said in a five-hour hearing Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee. “I’ve never seen a field that is so noncompliant with laws written by Congress and confirmed over and over again by the courts.”
Lawmakers are at odds over how to regulate stablecoins as the fallout from FTX’s collapse last year has left Democrats nervous about strengthening crypto’s ties to the broader financial system.
Since taking office in 2021, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has repeatedly warned crypto exchanges that they’d be liable if they listed digital tokens that should have been registered as securities but were not.
The [SEC’s lawsuit against Binance](https://www.wsj/articles