Key takeaways
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Nearly a year of Gensler's messages vanished during crypto's most chaotic stretch.
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The missing records span SEC lawsuits against Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.
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New leadership has dropped lawsuits and embraced tokenization pilots.
Gary Gensler may no longer run the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but his name is back in the headlines and not for policy.
The SEC's own watchdog says the former chair lost nearly a year of text messages, right in the middle of crypto's most chaotic stretch, and it wasn't an accident.
The SEC's Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed in a new report this week that messages from Gensler's government-issued iPhone, spanning October 2022 through September 2023 are gone. That's the exact window covering the collapse of FTX, the Grayscale lawsuit over a spot Bitcoin ETF, and a slew of other enforcement moves that defined his tenure.
Related: What is Crypto? Cryptocurrency explained
According to the OIG, the SEC's Office of Information Technology pushed through an "aggressive" new auto-wipe rule for inactive devices, failed to notice that Gensler's phone had stopped checking in, and then rushed through a factory reset.
The OIG called it bluntly:
"Decisions and actions resulted in the inadvertent loss of text messages."
Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store, said :
"Former SEC Chair Gensler's text messages from Oct 2022 to Sept 2023 are 'missing'… Basically FTX collapse thru Grayscale spot btc ETF lawsuit. Makes you think."
Others piled on. "All while the agency was bringing enforcement actions against BDs for failing to preserve text messages!" wrote securities lawyer Max Schatzow.
Another user, working in IT, said, "This is BS. Data can always be retrieved. But sure, Gary…the data somehow went 'missing.'"
A chair who left his mark on crypto
Gensler was the face of Washington's crackdown on digital assets. During his term, the SEC sued crypto exchanges, and warned repeatedly that most tokens were unregistered securities.
In June 2023, the SEC brought 13 charges against Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao. Allegations included operating unregistered exchanges and broker-dealers, misleading investors, and commingling assets. The SEC said the platforms earned at least $11.6 billion in U.S. customer transaction fees.
The SEC also sued Coinbase for allegedly operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.
Gensler stepping down in January 2025 marked a shift. Under the new Trump-appointed leadership, policy view reversed abruptly. Crypto enforcement cooled off—lawsuits against Coinbase were dropped entirely, Kraken, Consensys, and others saw charges dismissed or paused, and Ripple settled for a reduced sum.
That shift is part of a broader reorientation under Trump, crypto-friendly policies are back. Operation Choke Point 2.0, widely blamed for "debanking" crypto firms, is officially over. The OCC lifted permission requirements for bank crypto activity.
At the first-ever White House Digital Asset Summit in early 2025, President Trump called to make the U.S. the " crypto capital of the world." He signed executive orders to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and broader Digital Asset Stockpile using forfeited government-owned crypto. The target: BTC, ETH, XRP, ADA, and SOL.
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What the watchdog actually found
The OIG report is scathing. It says OIT didn't properly test the auto-wipe policy, failed to flag alerts on Gensler's phone, and then erased any chance of recovery with a factory reset. Forensic attempts later failed, and contractors brought in to analyze the incident were paid $53,000 for a report the OIG found unreliable.
Mmany of the texts that were recovered turned out to be federal records. Which means those that remain lost likely were too.
"Records are the foundation of open government," the report begins, before warning that the SEC's slip "may impact the SEC's response to certain Freedom of Information Act requests."
In damage control, the SEC has since shut off texting for most agency devices, notified the National Archives about the loss, and agreed to all five OIG recommendations. That includes tighter backups for senior officials, better log monitoring, and more controls before anyone wipes a device again.
What Gary Gensler is doing now
Since stepping down as SEC Chair on January 20, 2025, Gary Gensler returned to his academic roots. He's resumed his role as Professor of the Practice in Global Economics and Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management.
In this position, he continues to teach and research areas like AI, fintech, digital currencies, and public policy.
The SEC under its new leadership is rolling back several actions from Gensler's tenure. Most notably, it has withdrawn 14 rule proposals he championed—many targeting tougher oversight on crypto platforms.
This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Sep 5, 2025, where it first appeared in the Policy section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
