On Friday (November 8), Bitcoin soared again to break through $76,000, reaching a record high of $76,836. After Donald Trump announced his victory, news that Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was investigated by senior Republican lawmakers went viral on social media. The Republican Party has taken control of the Senate and leads the Senate election by 210 votes, and Trump is approaching a three-game winning streak.
As of Friday's Asian session, the U.S. House of Representatives election was still undecided, but the Republicans led the Democrats by 210 votes to 198, and needed 218 to gain a majority. However, Trump had won the presidential election, and the Republicans announced that they had a majority in the Senate.
Keith Gill, a legendary American retail investor nicknamed "Roaring Kitty," wrote on Twitter: "Breaking news, Gensler is under investigation."
Observing social trends, several accounts labeled as opinion leaders (Twitter blue tick) have coincidentally posted the same information, namely that Gensler is being investigated by senior Republican lawmakers.
A closer look reveals that the news actually originated in September, when Fox News reporter Eleanor Terrett said Gensler was being investigated by senior Republican lawmakers, including Jim Jordan, Patrick McHenry and James Comer, for suspected political favoritism in the hiring process.
This news resurfaced in the crypto market after Trump's victory.
Before the election, Trump promised that he would fire Gensler once he entered the White House.
Eleanor tweeted that she had contacted the SEC to ask whether Gensler planned to end his term at the end of this year or resign before Trump's inauguration in January 2025, but a spokesperson for the SEC did not respond.
It is worth noting that although the US president does not have the power to directly fire Gensler from the SEC, successive chairmen of the regulatory agency usually follow Washington tradition and choose to resign on or before the day the new president takes office.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's cryptocurrency enforcement will be significantly reduced after Trump takes office.
The crypto industry has invested millions of dollars in presidential and congressional campaigns, but its most notable electoral victory may be Gensler's departure. The former Goldman Sachs banker led the most severe regulatory crackdown on the digital asset industry, filing dozens of lawsuits against cryptocurrency companies and traders large and small, including financial giant Coinbase Global Inc. and proprietary trading firm DRW Holdings LLC.
President Trump’s decisive victory all but ensured a rollback of cryptocurrency-related enforcement once he took office. In July, Trump pledged to fire Gensler on the first day of his second administration while appearing at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.
The SEC often touts its successful court decisions that align with its view that decades-old securities laws apply to the emerging digital asset class. It has also imposed some huge fines on some of the industry's biggest companies. In April, the agency won a massive $4.5 billion in fines and disgorgement from stablecoin issuer Terraform Labs and founder Do Kwan. The agency has yet to release its annual enforcement report for fiscal 2024 actions, but according to a report by consulting firm Cornerstone Research, it filed 46 such cases the year before, an increase of more than 50% from the year before.
“Some of the cryptocurrency cases are legitimate fraud cases, and I expect those to continue, and I expect we’ll see more of them,” said J.W. Verret, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. “A lot of the cryptocurrency cases are registration-only cases, and in the cases where they can’t be registered, they’re fault cases.”
The next SEC chairman is expected to push for new regulations to amend existing securities laws or enable digital asset companies to comply with the rules that Gensler has long warned they are violating. This will also help control enforcement.
With the Senate now firmly in Republican hands, the prospects for bipartisan crypto legislation supporting that goal are brighter. “We expect the Trump administration and the new Congress to be more constructive about cryptocurrency regulation,” said Jack Inglis, CEO of the Alternative Investment Management Association, a London-based trade group representing hedge funds and private equity firms.
This means that policies “recognise the need to embed cryptocurrencies into a broader financial services framework, taking into account the technological differences from traditional finance, leading to a more tailored approach in many areas,” he said.
Summary of the US Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation of major cryptocurrency companies:
Bitcoin Technical Analysis
Economies.com said that Bitcoin price showed negative trading to test the breakout resistance of the bullish channel present on the chart, and the price needs to consolidate above these areas, which is the first condition for the continuation of the bullish trend expected in the coming period, targeting $78,000 as the next main stop.
On the other hand, we should note that a break below $75,000 and then a deeper drop to $73,820 levels will halt the bullish trend and expose the price to corrective bearish pressure.
“The current expected trading range is between the $73,800 support and $78,000 resistance.”
