SEC’s enforcement director announces departure 

Gurbir Grewal, who has been at the agency almost as long as Gensler has been chair, will depart on Oct. 11, 2024

article-image

Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Gurbir Grewal, who has served as the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s director of the division of enforcement since July 2021, will leave the agency this month. 

The current deputy director of the division, Sanjay Wadhwa, will step in as acting director starting on Oct. 11, the SEC announced Wednesday. 

“From recalibrating penalties and remedies to confronting emerging risks to holding issuers, insiders and gatekeepers accountable, I am incredibly proud of all that we’ve accomplished as a division during my tenure,” Grewal said in a statement. “I am grateful to Chair Gensler not just for the opportunity to lead the division, but also for his unwavering commitment to investor protection and support of a robust enforcement program.”

Read more: SEC crypto enforcement leader departs

Grewal joined the agency just months after SEC Chair Gary Gensler was sworn into his position in April 2021. Cryptocurrency-related enforcement actions, which had been on the rise before Grewal and Gensler took over, were a significant part of Grewal’s tenure. 

Under Grewal’s leadership, the agency issued 35 crypto enforcement actions in 2022 and a total of 40 in 2023. The division of enforcement almost doubled its crypto assets and cyber unit in May 2022, bringing the team’s total to 50. 

As of Sept. 6, 2024 the agency had brought 18 crypto enforcement actions since the start of the year. 

Read more: SEC settlements are becoming the cost of doing crypto business

“Every day, [Grewal] has thought about how to best protect investors and help ensure market participants comply with our time-tested securities laws,” Gensler said in a statement. “He has led a division that has acted without fear or favor, following the facts and the law wherever they may lead. I greatly enjoyed working with him and wish him well.”

Wadhwa started at the SEC in 2003 as a staff attorney in the New York office’s enforcement division. He served as the senior associate director of the New York enforcement division for eight years before he became the deputy director for the entire division. 

A representative from the SEC declined to comment.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Pipe Network is a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) that replaces the sparse, capital intensive data center footprint of traditional CDNs with a permissionless mesh of independent node operators. By orchestrating under-utilized resources that already exist at the edge, rather than purchasing or leasing thousands of servers, Pipe slashes capital intensity while letting supply expand autonomously in the places where bandwidth is scarcest and most expensive.

article-image

What if growth goes exponential while you’re hiding in gold and bitcoin?

article-image

While Compass Point analysts downgrade its Circle price target, Jefferies initiates Galaxy coverage with ‘buy’ rating

article-image

Friday News potpourri: Here’s what’s shaping up across Bitcoin, Ethereum and beyond.

article-image

A little inside baseball about crypto news

article-image

Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick and Empire’s Jason Yanowitz talked about the market and what they’re watching

article-image

For just $54, you, too, could send a memecoin 500% higher