Crypto exchange Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss has responded to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to charge Gemini and Genesis with selling unregistered securities.
The Winklevoss twin posted a series of tweets an hour after the SEC announced the charges against the two companies. He called the regulator’s decision “counterproductive” and said the exchange would defend itself against “this manufactured parking ticket.”
“It’s disappointing that the SEC chose to file an action today as Gemini and other creditors are working hard together to recover funds. This action does nothing to further our efforts and help Earn users get their assets back. Their behavior is totally counterproductive,” he said.
Winklevoss also said that Gemini has been discussing its Earn program with the SEC for 17 months.
“They never raised the prospect of any enforcement action until AFTER Genesis paused withdrawals on November 16th. Despite these ongoing conversations, the SEC chose to announce their lawsuit to the press before notifying us. Super lame. It’s unfortunate that they’re optimizing for political points instead of helping us advance the cause of 340,000 Earn users and other creditors,” Winklevoss said.
He said he didn’t understand the “point of urgency here” because the Earn program has been shut down for almost two months. Gemini officially ended its yield program on Wednesday.
“[…] we will make sure this doesn’t distract us from the important recovery work we are doing,” Winklevoss concluded. Gemini is still trying to retrieve over $900 million of customer funds stuck with Genesis, which reportedly has more than $3 billion in debts to its creditors.
Gemini is one of the largest centralized crypto exchanges in the world. Now that it’s having legal issues, investors should consider moving their funds off of Gemini for the time being.
