The issues associated with FTX and Alameda have caused a number of cryptocurrency proponents to ask why regulators like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not catch FTX before it collapsed. Congressman Tom Emmer tweeted about allegations concerning the SEC chairman helping FTX obtain a regulatory monopoly. The LBRY Twitter account, operated by the blockchain project that lost a court case with the SEC, discussed the regulator’s harsh enforcement against LBRY, compared to the treatment FTX had seen.

“Increasingly looking like that while the SEC had a team of staff working to crush us, a tiny actor and one of the actual honest ones, FTX was stealing billions and [SEC chairman Gary Gensler] was taking the time to personally meet with them,” LBRY wrote. Bankman-Fried’s effective altruism background, the million-dollar donations to Democratic super PACs and U.S. president Joe Biden, his reported meeting with SEC chairman Gary Gensler, and other connections have caused people to believe SBF was a political “patsy” meant to roughshod crypto regulations into the industry.