U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler shared his thoughts on a recent court ruling which declared XRP was not a security with respect to its sale on digital asset exchanges, but was a security as far as institutional sales of the token were concerned. 

Speaking at an event hosted by the National Press Club on Monday, Gensler said that the SEC was pleased with the decision which recognized the importance of protecting investors on the institutional side, while disappointed at what the court said about the token with regards to retail investors.

“We’re still looking at it and assessing that opinion,” he said.

“We’re going to continue to try to bring firms that may not be in compliance into compliance — without prejudging any one of them — and try to ensure that we protect the investing public,” he added, calling the crypto field one that was “rife with fraud and abuse.”

When asked by a member of the audience why the SEC had taken a regulation by enforcement approach towards crypto, instead of creating rules for the industry like the EU’s MiCA framework, Gensler said that any type of security investment requires certain protections to be in place.

Gensler said the SEC had engaged in some rule making around special purpose broker dealers, exchanges and the custody of assets in the crypto space.

“We’ve spoken through, also, various enforcement actions and it is something we do. The way we protect the market against insider trading from the 1960’s to now has been speaking to the market on a somewhat regular basis through enforcement actions,” he said.