New SEC Chairman Also Serves as Senior Lecturer on Bitcoin at MIT
The executive serves as a teacher and bring classes about the impact of Bitcoin on the financial world. He considers cryptocurrencies without a central authority as an innovative alternative.
The newly nominated candidate to head the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, serves also as a senior lecturer on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchains at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The executive teaches economics and brings lessons to improve management at the institute’s Sloan School of Business.
Gensler also serves as an advisor to the MIT Media Lab cryptocurrency initiative and lead research that guards a close relationship to bitcoin and its impact on finances. In 2018, the executive also conducted a free multimedia course under the name of “Blockchain and money”.
About a training program like the one Gensler leads, he highlights the relevance of the potential uses of blockchains, decentralized applications, and smart contracts and the impact each one of these procedures has on the current economy. The course is set in 24 videos on which the economist explains in detail all the above-mentioned topics.
The academic is one of those who consider that a form of digital money such as cryptocurrencies, without a single central authority, can be an innovative step that could empower the current economy. In discussions with students, Gensler points out those crypto-assets serve as bridges to achieve a more secure system of payments.
Gensler’s Thoughts about Bitcoin
“Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper ‘Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic cash system’ and associated blockchain technology, will be studied in the context of the long history of money and ledgers,” Said Gensler at the end of his second video.
During the Barack Obama administration, Gensler served as the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and now he awaits the ratification of the Senate to reach his spot as the leader of the SEC.
With Gensler as the leader of the SEC, there is a more favorable scenario for setting a conciliatory tone between the regulator and companies that work in the bitcoin environment. There is probably a chance to approach, establish, and promote innovation rather than bans.
The potential ratification of Gensler in the position precisely come to light after the SEC filed a formal complaint with a cost of 1.3 billion dollars to the company Ripple Labs, the issuer of the crypto active XRP.
This legal action also aims at its cofounders, Christian Larsen and Bradley Garlinghouse for trading securities without consent. In its defense, the entity states that XRP is not a security but a cryptocurrency.
In his classes, Gensler made special points to talk with his students about the nature of XRP and its behavior. Gensler has also addressed this debate on the nature of XRP together with the students in his classes.
The executive assured in 3 years ago that both currencies (ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network), and XRP have the potential to be used as financial securities.
By: Jenson Nuñez