Gemini won’t hire MIT grads unless university drops ex-SEC chair Gensler

Crypto exchange Gemini won’t be hiring any graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unless the university drops former Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler from his teaching role.

“As long as MIT has any association with Gary Gensler, Gemini will not hire any graduates from this school,” Gemini co-founder and CEO Tyler Winklevoss said in a Jan. 30 X post. He added the crypto exchange also wouldn’t hire interns for its summer internship program.

Gemini’s feud with the SEC stems back to at least March, when it paid $21 million in fines to settle SEC claims that it sold unregistered securities through its Gemini Earn program with the now-bankrupt crypto firm Genesis. 

The enforcement action was orchestrated by Gensler, who served as the commission’s chair until Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump was inaugurated. 

Gensler has now returned to MIT as a professor to teach and research artificial intelligence in finance, financial tech and regulatory policy. He previously taught there between 2018 and 2021, before being tapped by the Biden administration to lead the SEC.

Under Gensler, the SEC launched a record number of crypto-related enforcement actions, so Winklevoss’ comments received support from the likes of Bitcoin advocate Erik Voorhees, who said, “Every crypto company should boycott MIT grads until Gary is fired.”

The crypto industry has past looked to boycott SEC staff, including Coinbase, which stopped working with law firm Milbank after it hired former SEC official Gurbir Grewal in December.

Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong said his firm would avoid working with law firms that hire people who tried to “unlawfully kill” the industry while failing to clarify the rules and urged other crypto companies to follow suit.

Others, including the Axelar Network’s Sergey Gorbunov, said he didn’t “see a reason to punish students” over the crypto industry’s beef with Gensler and offered to hire MIT graduates.

Arkham’s head of UK legal, Preston Byrne, agreed, saying that “not hiring law firms who employ SEC enforcers is one thing. Not hiring MIT graduates seems like overkill.”

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Blockchain advocate Jiasun Li, an associate professor at George Mason University, said a better strategy may have been to boycott any student who enrolls in Gensler’s class.

Winklevoss recently said any company or university that hired Gensler would be betraying the crypto industry.

“No amount of apology can undo the damage he has done to our industry and our country,” Winklevoss said in a Nov. 16 X post. 

The SEC is currently headed by Mark Uyeda, who was one of three SEC commissioners to vote in favor of spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds in January 2024.

One of the others who voted in favor of the spot Bitcoin ETF was Hester Peirce, who is now leading the crypto task force unit recently established by the commission.

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