US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler is under scrutiny for alleged failure to comply with federal record-keeping requirements. This issue has generated controversy in the cryptocurrency world due to the potential implications for regulatory transparency and accountability.

In November 2022, a letter to Gensler and the SEC questioned his compliance with record-keeping requirements. The main concern revolved around evidence suggesting that the SEC may not be identifying and producing records of official business conducted on non-email or ‘off-channel’ platforms such as Signal, WhatsApp, Teams and Zoom. This letter did not receive a satisfactory response, raising concerns among cryptocurrency enthusiasts about the SEC’s commitment to transparency.

In addition, there is growing concern that the SEC may not be meeting its recordkeeping obligations related to the notice and comment rulemaking process of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, it questions whether the SEC has adequately documented feedback on its proposed rules, which is essential to formulating rules based on a complete record, in compliance with the APA.

Public calendars show that Gensler had numerous meetings with different groups since his presidency began in April 2021. However, only a few of these meetings are documented in comment files, raising concerns about record-keeping practices. of the SEC.

For example, Gensler reportedly met multiple times with CalPERS, a proponent of the SEC’s sweeping climate disclosure rule proposal, but only two of these meetings appear in the Climate Proposal’s comment file. Similar discrepancies have been noted with other groups like Better Markets and Healthy Markets, raising more questions about the accuracy of the SEC’s record keeping.

In response to these concerns, the original authors of the November 2022 letter demanded complete and accurate responses to a new set of requests. These include certifications of the SEC’s compliance with federal record-keeping and transparency requirements, an explanation of the SEC’s definition of “out-of-channel communications,” and the provision of lists of all those platforms and SEC employees that use them. have used for official business.

The SEC has until July 17, 2023 to respond to these lawsuits. The crypto community is closely watching these developments as they could affect SEC transparency and accountability, two crucial factors in a maturing cryptocurrency regulatory environment.