In March, eight months before his cryptocurrency empire imploded, Sam Bankman-Fried joined a video call with Gary Gensler, a longtime financial regulator who now leads the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The meeting didn’t go well. Mr. Bankman-Fried, the chief executive of the Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX, wanted approval from the S.E.C. to offer cryptocurrencies in the United States without the threat of a fine for violating securities rules.
Mr. Bankman-Fried was joined on the call by FTX staff as well as business partners at the stock exchange IEX, who began walking Mr. Gensler through a PowerPoint presentation. At about the second slide, Mr. Gensler cut them off and launched into a roughly 45-minute lecture on his vision for crypto regulation, preventing any further discussion, three people familiar with the conversation said.
Source: Inside Gary Gensler’s SEC Campaign to Rein In the Crypto Industry – The New York Times
