The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might be done with Gemini, but Gemini isn’t done with the SEC.
According to a Wednesday X post from Gemini co-founder and President Cameron Winklevoss, the SEC informed Gemini on Monday that it was closing its investigation into the New York-based crypto exchange and would not be filing enforcement charges against it.
However, Winklevoss expressed dissatisfaction with this outcome, stating, “The SEC’s retreat does little to make up for the damage this agency has done to us, our industry, and America.”
He continued, “The SEC cost us tens of millions of dollars in legal bills alone and hundreds of millions in lost productivity, creativity, and innovation. The SEC’s behavior in aggregate towards other crypto companies and projects cost orders of magnitude more and caused unquantifiable loss in economic growth for America.”
Winklevoss warned that without repercussions for both the SEC and the individual staff involved in such investigations, federal agencies could continue to threaten lawful industries in the future.
In his post, Winklevoss also suggested that any agency that “refuses to write rules before it opens an investigation or brings an enforcement action should be required to reimburse defendants for 3x [their] legal costs.”
Additionally, he demanded that all SEC staff members involved in the probe into Gemini be publicly fired, and their names and roles should be disclosed on the SEC website.
Winklevoss concluded, “These individuals had a choice. They could have asked to be reassigned or resigned. Nobody was forcing them to work at the SEC. Nonetheless they chose to violate their oath and the agency’s mission to ‘make a positive impact on the U.S. economy, our capital markets, and people’s lives.’”
The SEC’s decision to drop its investigation follows similar actions against other companies like Uniswap Labs and Robinhood Crypto. Earlier on Wednesday, the SEC also filed a joint motion to pause its litigation against the Tron Foundation and Justin Sun, similar to previous motions against Coinbase and Binance.
The SEC did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
