Gensler’s 2022: Gensler continued his time in office in 2022 as chair of the SEC, where the financial regulator cracked down on crypto firms in what many critics called a “regulation by enforcement” approach. The agency experienced a shakeup in leadership in 2022: Mark Uyeda and Jaime Lizárraga became the latest commissioners to join Gensler, Hester Peirce and Caroline Crenshaw on the SEC’s panel. On the regulatory front, the SEC announced charges in a case involving a former Coinbase product manager, claiming that nine of the 25 tokens at the center of the allegations were securities under the agency’s regulatory purview. Celebrity endorsements of crypto projects were also on the SEC’s radar in 2022. In one instance, Kim Kardashian agreed to pay the SEC $1.26 million as part of a settlement for promoting EthereumMax on her Instagram account. Gensler has repeatedly advised crypto projects to “come in and talk” to address any potential uncertainty around securities laws — a lack of regulatory clarity that many firms have pointed to when discussing how to operate in the United States legally. Lawmakers in Congress attempted to pass legislation aimed at clarifying what roles the SEC and CFTC would play in regulating different types of crypto assets — bills that largely went nowhere in 2022.