The outgoing SEC chair, Gensler, defends his stance on cryptocurrencies less than two weeks before leaving the agency

The outgoing chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Gensler, said he is proud of the work the agency has done and that there is still "work to be done" less than two weeks before his departure date.

During a Bloomberg television interview on Wednesday, Gensler reiterated his claim that cryptocurrencies are "plagued by bad actors," while making comparisons to the chair appointed by former President Donald Trump, Jay Clayton. Clayton served as chair of the SEC from 2017 to 2020.

When Bloomberg asked him about some of the high-profile SEC cases brought against cryptocurrencies during Gensler's tenure and whether that caused a change in behavior, Gensler said the agency built its work on what previous chairs had done.

"It’s a field that has been built around non-compliance, and I’m proud of what we have done, building on what Chair Clayton and others have done before," Gensler said. "I believe there is still work to be done."

Gensler announced in November that he would resign on January 20, the day of the inauguration of the elected president.

Gensler told Bloomberg that he divides the industry into two: one being bitcoin and "everything else."

"I have worked in the financial sector for more than four decades, and everything that happens in the markets is traded based on a combination of fundamental factors and sentiment at a given moment," Gensler said. "But I have never seen a sector that is so focused on sentiment and not so much on fundamental factors."