Winklevoss Slams SEC After Investigation Into Gemini Ends Without Charges
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may have concluded its investigation into Gemini, but Gemini is far from satisfied.
In a Wednesday post on X, Gemini co-founder and President Cameron Winklevoss revealed that the SEC informed the company on Monday that it was closing its investigation into the New York-based crypto exchange and would not be pursuing enforcement charges. However, Winklevoss expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome, stating that the SEC’s retreat “does little to make up for the damage this agency has done to us, our industry, and America.”
Winklevoss criticized the SEC for costing Gemini “tens of millions of dollars in legal bills alone and hundreds of millions in lost productivity, creativity, and innovation.” He also argued that the SEC’s actions toward other crypto companies and projects resulted in even greater economic damage, causing “unquantifiable loss in economic growth for America.” Without consequences for the SEC and its staff members involved in the investigation, Winklevoss warned that other federal agencies could continue to “bully, harass and attack a lawful industry and then decide one day to simply say we’re good and walk away.”
In his post, Winklevoss proposed 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.”
He also called for the public dismissal of all SEC staff members involved in the Gemini investigation, stating their “names, roles, and the actions they participated in should be posted on the SEC website.”
“It should not be acceptable to bring the full might of the U.S. government to bear against fledgling companies in a nascent industry and then hide behind a faceless agency or say you were ‘just doing your job’ or ‘following orders,’” Winklevoss wrote. “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’ and instead aided and abetted an unlawful war against a lawful industry.”
The SEC’s decision to drop its investigation into Gemini follows similar moves involving Uniswap Labs, Robinhood Crypto, and OpenSea. Additionally, earlier on Wednesday, the SEC filed a joint motion to pause litigation against the Tron Foundation and Justin Sun, similar to recent motions in its cases against Coinbase and Binance.
