Gary Gensler: The Antihero of Our Time

The Coinomist Dossier

Gary Gensler

Born: October 18, 1957, in Baltimore, Maryland (65 years old)

Career: The Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance; 11th Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; 33rd Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (current position)

Marital status: Widowed, a father to three daughters

Hobbies: Running

The Good Bad Guy

Gary Gensler was raised in a large Jewish family. His father ran an uncommon business: renting gaming machines to Baltimore's bars and selling cigarettes. As a child, the future financial markets' regulator got his first taste of finance, collecting the day's proceeds from his father's ventures. Whether it was the genes or the routine coin counting, Gensler emerged as a prodigy in numbers.

He graduated from Pikesville High School where he was given a Distinguished Alumnus award. Later, Gensler earned his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and obtained a Master of Business Administration degree.

Gary's life seems to mirror Forrest Gump's cinematic journey — continually moving forward. He's completed nine marathons and a 50-mile race. When he's not running, he's climbing — not merely the career ladder but literal mountains. Gary has climbed Mount Rainier, an active volcano in Washington, and Kilimanjaro, the highest stratovolcano in Africa.

But is all this physical activity simply to stay in shape? Probably not. It appears Gensler is trying to outrun his personal ghosts. His life has been shadowed by a great loss. Gary's wife, artist Francesca Danieli, battled breast cancer for years, spending her final years wheelchair-bound. Gensler was widowed before his fiftieth birthday and has remained single ever since. His three daughters — Anna, Lee, and Isabel, who was just ten at the time — became his sole responsibility. In their now serene home, adorned with pictures and paintings evoking memories of their late mother and wife, Gary embraced the responsibilities of housework, cooking dinners, and doing laundry for his bereaved family. He chose to forgo the assistance of nannies or housekeepers.

Gamma Knife No. 9 by Francesca Danieli Source: collection.artbma.org

The Presidential Favorite

Despite the challenging circumstances in his personal life, Gary didn't allow anything to hinder his extraordinary career progression in both the private and public sectors. He joined Goldman Sachs, one of the world's most prominent investment banks, at the age of 22. By 30, he had already become one of Goldman Sachs' youngest-ever partners. His reputation within the company was strong, earning him the nicknames “Mr. Clean” and “The Kindly Prosecutor”. 

After spending 18 fruitful years at Goldman Sachs, Gary's standout potential was recognized by then-US President Bill Clinton. Following Clinton's recommendation, the Senate approved Gensler for the role of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

Gensler's career took another upward turn under the next Democratic President, Barack Obama, who nominated him as the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Gensler took the reins and started streamlining the murky waters of the over-the-counter derivatives market, achieving quite a commendable result. The CFTC, initially overseeing the futures market valued at $35 trillion, extended its influence to the swaps market, estimated to be worth $400 trillion. Gensler erected a legal scaffold for it, authoring an array of legislative measures. 

However, Gensler's actions didn't win him a fan club. On the contrary, Gensler managed to rankle Congress, alienate bankers, and irritate stock exchange lobbyists. Many speculated that if not for his teeming pool of critics, Gensler could have been a contender for the Chairman's position at the SEC. Ironically, he took the helm of the Commission on April 9, 2021.

The controversial persona of Gary Gensler Source: Getty Images

The Crypto Killer

The Senate confirmed Gensler as the head of the SEC for a five-year term with a 54-to-45 vote. Just a year later, in April 2022, Gensler declared war on cryptocurrency. During a conference hosted by the student association at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he first announced that the SEC would begin to register and regulate cryptocurrency exchanges.

We’ve seen this story before. It’s reminiscent of what we had in the 1920s before the federal securities laws were put in place. Hucksters. Fraudsters. Scam artists. Ponzi schemes

he explained

Since then, Gensler has systematically pursued and targeted the cryptocurrency industry in the U.S. During this time, he has not made a single misstep. Cryptocurrency companies are either shutting down, paying fines or relocating to other jurisdictions. Even Ripple's legal victory against the SEC can't be considered a conclusive win. Most likely, the company faces a long appeals process.

Despite his antagonistic stance, Gensler is far from being a clueless critic of the crypto industry. He holds the position of a Professor of Practice in Global Economics and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. Furthermore, he is a co-founder of MIT Fintech@CSAIL and serves as a senior advisor to the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative. Gensler even teaches courses on blockchain and digital currencies. 

Hence, it's highly unlikely that Gensler is haphazardly disrupting an industry he is intimately involved in. Instead, a more plausible interpretation might be that he's engaged in a nuanced strategic play within the financial market. The market is incredibly sensitive to each of Gensler's comments and every action taken by the SEC. And remember, profits can be made not just from a surge in crypto, but also from its decline.

“A Simple Truth” — a portrait of Gensler by Skygolpe Source: skygolpe.com