U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres has called for an investigation into the special purpose broker-dealer (SPBD) license given by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to Prometheum, a cryptocurrency exchange platform. In two letters sent to U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro and SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffries, Torres calls for investigation of the “backroom deals” allegedly brokered between the SEC and Prometheum.

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres Requests Investigation Into Prometheum’s License

Ritchie Torres, a U.S. representative for New York, is requesting an official investigation on the licenses the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave to Prometheum, a digital assets trading platform that Torres states “does not trade digital assets.”

On July 13, Torres sent two letters to U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro and SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey to request an independent review of the failure of the SEC to provide a workable path for crypto exchanges to register, and also on the alleged “backroom deals” that the agency brokered with Prometheum.

Rep. Torres slammed Prometheum, referring to it as a Potemkin platform used by the commission as a “talking point for crypto critics” instead of a trading platform for crypto customers.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler Accused of Politicizing Agency Processes

In the letters, Torres refers to SEC Chair Gary Gensler by name, stating that granting a license to Prometheum is his latest attempt to “politicize the registration process to an extent seldom seen in the SEC’s history.” Prometheum came into the spotlight in June when its co-CEO Aaron Kaplan testified at a congressional hearing that there was a path for registering a digital assets exchange with the commission and that crypto companies were “simply not willing to comply.”

Nonetheless, Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, revealed that Prometheum executives had links with federal agencies and financial companies such as the SEC, FINRA, NYSE, and CBOE, giving origin to speculations about the approval of its special purpose broker-dealer (SPBD) license.

Torres criticized the SEC’s behavior in the digital assets arena, declaring that the regulator was like an “overzealous traffic agent who arbitrarily tickets drivers for speeding while keeping everyone endlessly guessing about the speeding limit.”

He concluded:

Regulation by enforcement is no way to regulate.

On July 10, U.S. Senator Thomas Tuberville and a group of senators sent a letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to alert them about the ties that Prometheum could have with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) linked companies and its possible false testimony given to the Congress.

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