3.3% of the SEC's Enforcement Division is dedicated to crypto enforcement

SEC Structure

The SEC is composed of various divisions with Enforcement, Examinations, Corporate Finance, General Consul, Economic and Risk Management, Trading and Markets, and Investment Management being the main divisions with over 100 staff members.

Enforcement Division

The unit that handles crypto falls under the Enforcement Division of the SEC. When Gary Gensler took over the SEC there were fewer than 30 people in the Cyber Unit. One of the things that he did early on was rename the unit the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit and almost double the staff to 50 members.

The 2024 Congressional Budget Justification for the SEC listed all of the positions that each division has. The Enforcement Division currently has 1,508 positions with 50 of them being in the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit. This is a relatively small amount of the total enforcement division, but it seems like every enforcement action that they take gets serious media attention.

Gary Gensler wants to increase the number of full-time employees (technically FTE) in the Enforcement Division by 8% in 2024. They have not announced in what units under the Enforcement Division they want to add the 109 FTEs, but you can bet that many will be added to the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit.

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