If you follow the crypto market even a little, you've probably heard of the SEC. But honestly? Most traders don't quite understand how this organization is structured and why its decisions cause such fluctuations in the market. Let's figure it out.

The SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, a federal agency that monitors compliance with American securities laws. It was created back in 1934, after the 1929 crash. Currently, it is led by Gary Gensler, and his name has become almost synonymous with volatility in the crypto market over the past few years.

What does the SEC actually do? Primarily, it controls that companies comply with securities registration rules. It protects investors from fraud, demands transparency, and oversees corporate acquisitions. It sounds logical for the traditional financial market, but when the SEC started applying these same principles to crypto — problems began.

The SEC's structure consists of five main divisions: investment management, corporate finance oversight, market trading supervision, legal department, and risk analytics. Each is responsible for its own area.

Now, the most interesting part — how does all this affect crypto? The US remains the world's main financial center, so any SEC decision has a global impact. Gensler believes that crypto is full of risks. He recognizes Bitcoin as a commodity, but in his opinion, most altcoins are unregistered securities. And the SEC has begun actively proving this in court.

Remember the lawsuits against major exchanges? Accusations of trading unregistered tokens. One platform was claimed to have earned billions through illegal trading. This caused panic — prices dropped, people withdrew funds. Then there was a lawsuit against Ripple for XRP — the SEC claimed that the company raised over $1.2 billion by selling unregistered securities.

In 2023, the SEC filed a lawsuit against the issuer of BUSD, calling the stablecoin an unregistered security. The result? The price dropped, and it took days to recover.

The SEC isn't stopping there. Now the agency is scrutinizing stablecoins like USDT and USDC, studying DeFi, and demanding that everyone meet established standards. Essentially, the SEC is trying to fit the decentralized financial world into the framework of traditional regulation.

That's the situation. The SEC is not just an American agency. It is an organization whose decisions influence the entire global crypto market. And until there is clarity in regulation, volatility will remain part of the game.