Gary Gensler goes back to MIT after getting kicked out of the SEC over crypto hate

Gary Gensler, the man who spent nearly four years at the US SEC blocking crypto at every turn, has packed his bags and returned to MIT Sloan School of Management.

The school announced his return on January 27, confirming that he will take up a Professor of the Practice role in its Global Economics and Management Group, as well as the Finance Group.

His new job puts him back in academia, teaching AI, finance, financial technology, and public policy. He will also co-direct the FinTechAI@CSAIL initiative alongside MIT finance professor Andrew W. Lo within the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

MIT faculty lines up to praise Gary 

MIT wasted no time celebrating Gary’s return. The school’s interim dean, Georgia Perakis, welcomed him, saying his “breadth of experience” would benefit students. Simon Johnson, head of MIT Sloan’s Global Economics and Management Group, confirmed that he would co-teach a new course with Gary.

“He and I will be teaching a new course together, and we look forward to engaging with as many students as possible,” Johnson said.

Paul Asquith, head of MIT Sloan’s Finance Group, also shared his excitement, calling Gary a “rare scholar” with extensive real-world experience. Andrew W. Lo, Gary’s co-director at FinTechAI@CSAIL, said the timing of his return was “perfect,” considering AI’s increasing role in reshaping finance.

Gary, in response, said he was “honored” to be back and looked forward to collaborating with “MIT’s distinguished team of scholars creating a better future for all through artificial intelligence, finance, and technology.”

Crypto nemesis leaves behind a trail of lawsuits 

While at the SEC, Gary led lawsuits against Binance, Coinbase, and Ripple, arguing that most digital assets were unregistered securities. His campaign triggered an industry-wide backlash and many congressional hearings, where lawmakers grilled him for refusing to clarify whether Ethereum was a security.

At one hearing, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) pressed him for a straight answer on Ethereum’s classification. Gary dodged, as he always did. Hester Peirce, a fellow SEC commissioner known as “Crypto Mom,” later admitted publicly that the agency’s approach under Gary stifled innovation and hurt investors.

Lawmakers accused him of misleading Congress and playing politics with the SEC’s crypto policy. Before joining the SEC, Gary taught a blockchain course at MIT and was seen as a supporter of crypto innovation. But once he got power, he flipped and took an enforcement-first approach.

The result was dozens of lawsuits, billions of dollars in legal battles, and zero new crypto rules passed under his leadership. He made every single thing extremely hard for the crypto industry, deliberately too.

Gary Gensler’s long career: Wall Street, Washington, and MIT

Before MIT, Gary spent 18 years at Goldman, eventually becoming a partner. He later worked for the US Treasury Department under Bill Clinton, where he helped draft the Sarbanes-Oxley Act after the Enron scandal.

In 2009, former US President Barack Obama appointed him chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where he pushed strict derivatives regulations following the 2008 financial crisis. In 2017, he chaired the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission before joining MIT Sloan as a professor in 2018.

During his first MIT stint, Gary co-directed fintech research at CSAIL, advised MIT’s Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative, and even won MIT Sloan’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 2019. Then, in 2021, Biden picked him to chair the SEC.

Now that Gary is back in academia, crypto insiders are watching closely. Will he revert to his MIT blockchain professor persona, or will he continue his anti-crypto stance? Probably not, since the man sitting in the Oval OOffice right now calls himself “crypto president.”

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