Tyler Winklevoss, who co-founded Gemini with his twin brother Cameron Winklevoss, has taken a dig at the US Securities and Exchange Commission for filing a lawsuit against the crypto exchange platform. The Commission claims that Gemini has violated securities laws by issuing unregulated offerings to its customers.
Tyler immediately expressed his unhappiness with the development on the part of the SEC, calling the decision by the league “super lame” and “a manufactured parking ticket.”
A series of tweets by Tyler Winklevoss indicate that he is dissatisfied with the timing of the SEC’s move. Gemini and its creators are currently in the process of receiving their funds back from Genesis. The action does nothing to further our efforts, said Tyler adding that the move is counter-productive to their efforts.
Gemini partnered with Genesis in February 2021 to allow the users of Genesis to access the benefits of Gemini’s Earn program, a program that commits the users to a 7.4% yield on their deposits. The partnership ultimately fell apart following the announcement of a liquidity crisis by FTX, which triggered Genesis to halt the withdrawals and deposits of funds.
The fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and his venture, FTX, negatively affected the entire industry. Genesis took the fall pretty hard by instantly blocking the process of withdrawing funds. Users who have funds with Genesis are unable to withdraw their funds. This has reportedly affected over 340,000 people in the ecosystem. Assets are estimated to be worth around $1 billion.
In response to this action, Gemini has scrapped its Earn program, leaving investors with no clue about what they should do next.
The SEC has sued both companies—Gemini and Genesis—under the allegations that they have sold unauthorized securities to their customers, which include US-based investors. Tyler had defended the Earn Program by saying that it was regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, also known as NYDFS, before the program was removed.
Tyler has further noted that the SEC did not notify Gemini before making the news available to the public, even though both of them have been in discussion for more than a year.
The fallout from Gamini and Genesis has become a case study for crypto enthusiasts. Genesis and Gemini are discussing how they can go about letting the users withdraw their funds. Meanwhile, Cameron Winklevoss has written an open letter to Genesis’ parent company, DCG, accusing their Chief Executive Officer (Barry Silbert) of conspiring with company executives to falsify the financial statements to show that Genesis is doing well.
In conclusion to the SEC versus Tyler Winklevoss controversy, Tyler has said that Gemini looks forward to defending itself while ensuring that it does not distract them from the recovery work.