Former SEC Chair Gensler: All crypto assets except Bitcoin are risky

Key Takeaways

• Gary Gensler, former SEC Chair, stated that all crypto assets except Bitcoin are highly risky and speculative.
• Gensler argued that Bitcoin is distinct from other digital assets in the eyes of regulators, often viewed as a commodity.

Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler has distinguished Bitcoin from other digital assets, stating that every crypto asset except Bitcoin is highly risky and speculative.

“The American public and the worldwide public have been fascinated with cryptocurrencies. But it’s a highly speculative, volatile asset,” said Gensler on Bloomberg TV today. “And putting aside Bitcoin for a minute, all the thousands of other tokens, not the stable coins that are backed by US dollars, but all the thousands of other tokens, you have to ask yourself what’s the fundamentals, what’s underlying it.”

Gensler emphasized that investors should be aware of the risks associated with speculative and volatile crypto assets.

Asked whether crypto had become politicized or split along Democrat–Republican lines, and whether the Trump administration’s involvement had discouraged some investors, Gensler avoided Trump-related points.

He said he did not see crypto as a partisan issue, arguing that it ultimately comes down to protecting the strength of US capital markets.

When pressed on whether ETF approvals had made crypto behave more like the stock market, Gensler said he was not surprised.

The MIT professor explained that finance naturally gravitates toward centralization and that a supposedly decentralized ecosystem becoming more integrated is simply part of that pattern.