Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) cross-examined SEC Chair Gary Gensler earlier this week specifically about the term ‘investment contract’, which is key to determining the SEC’s authority over crypto currencies.
Torres says he worries about the term “investment contract” which he claims has become “so infinitely malleable and manipulable” that when it comes to crypto the SEC’s “interpretation of the investment contract has no limiting principal and therefore could invite arbitrary and capricious enforcement action.”
When Torres asked Gensler “Does an investment contract require a contract?” the SEC Chair did not provide a “yes” or “no” answer. When Torres asked Gensler to “provide a decision from the Supreme Court that has found an investment contract in the absence of an actual contract,” Gensler did not.
Torres told the SEC Chair: “I find it telling that you can’t cite a single case. Your inability to answer the question is baffling to me.”
With the video below, the Bronx native Torres reports: “Gensler struggled to answer basic questions like whether an investment contract requires a contract. His evasions are deafening and damning.”
I cross-examined @SECGov Chair Gary Gensler about the term 'investment contract', which is key to determining his authority over crypto.
— Rep. Ritchie Torres (@RepRitchie) September 27, 2023
Gensler struggled to answer basic questions like whether an investment contract requires a contract. His evasions are deafening and damning. pic.twitter.com/EJcZEHiKGL
Billionaire and cryptocurrencies investor Mark Cuban amplified Torres’s assessment by retweeting the post to his nearly 9 million of followers on X (formerly Twitter).
Last week, it was reported that Cuban lost nearly $900,000 worth of cryptocurrencies to a scam.
Crypto news outlet DL News reported that Cuban recently went on MetaMask, an app that allows users to purchase, store and trade digital tokens, for “the first time in months” to check his account on his phone. That’s when he discovered his digital wallet of around $870,00 worth of various types of cryptocurrencies including stablecoins, SuperRare and Ethereum Name Service tokens, had been drained.
Cuban told DL News he believes he downloaded a fraudulent version of the popular app that he found in a Google search.
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