The Securities and Exchange Commission said that during the most recent federal fiscal year, penalties and remedies to investors harmed by criminal or civil misbehavior totaled $6.4 billion.
The agency reported filing 760 enforcement actions in FY 2022, up 9% from the previous year, with 462 of those being completely new cases, up 6.5% annually.
The agency does not break down how many enforcement actions or settlements from the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2022 were related to cryptocurrencies in its annual summary of enforcement statistics released today, but it does highlight a number of such actions or settlements from that time frame.
- Charges of insider trading against a Coinbase product manager.
- A $100 million penalties for BlockFi.
- A $5.5 million settlement with NVIDIA over what the SEC claims was a failure to adequately disclose how the company’s business was impacted by crypto mining, despite the fact that NVIDIA did not accept or dispute the commission’s conclusions.
- 11 people are accused of participating in a $300 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.
The SEC also bragged about expanding its cryptocurrency unit by 20 new positions, creating a team dedicated to the digital asset sector.
The SEC’s strategy has received harsh criticism from leaders in the cryptocurrency business and supporters. This includes current doubts about the agency’s treatment of FTX and earlier this year’s discussions between FTX management and the SEC.
When asked last week why the SEC hadn’t yet taken action against FTX, which had an American subsidiary but conducted most of its business overseas, Chair Gary Gensler replied;
“Building the evidence, building the facts, often takes time.”
