Today, the digital currency ecosystem witnessed the arrest of Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network, by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While many seem to be applauding the market regulator for the move, XRP holders' lawyer John Deaton is vocally questioning the selective enforcement actions of the SEC.
Taking to his official Twitter handle, Deaton said the SEC has committed considerable resources toward its enforcement actions. While he noted the commission could not possibly catch every bad actor in the Web3.0 ecosystem, the SEC has pursued more players in the industry with noncriminal offenses when compared to Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who has a long list of charges bordering on fraud.
While the implosion of Celsius Network preceded that of FTX by about six months, John Deaton wants to know where the correspondence between SBF and the SEC is being kept. Deaton remains one of the leaders in the industry that has always called out the SEC, and his current position echoes related sentiment from Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, who noted recently that his firm was sued while SBF was spared.
Mashinsky and Celsius's woes
As reported earlier by U.Today, Alex Mashinsky reportedly dumped many of his crypto holdings earlier this year, featuring a total of 90,000 CEL, for 48,018 USDC. The SEC lawsuit was accompanied by the crackdown of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has banned the crypto lender from trading in the United States.
The FTC crackdown was also accompanied by $4.7 billion, a bogus sum that many are unsure the embattled firm will be able to pay. The Celsius crackdown is further proof that U.S. authorities are focused on instilling transparency in the nascent crypto ecosystem.