Coinbase Legal Vice President: SEC has not collected fines of up to $10 billion, and should focus on the amount of money that has been returned to damaged investors

Ryan VanGrack, vice president of legal affairs at Coinbase, said in an article on X that more than 50% of the record fines imposed by the US SEC in the past year came from a single case (Terraform was fined $4.4 billion), and these fines may never be recovered. He pointed out that focusing only on enforcement statistics can be misleading. In contrast, more attention should be paid to the amount of money returned to damaged investors, with the highest record being in 2019 (US$1.2 billion). WSJ recently reported that the SEC faces huge challenges in terms of uncollected fines, and as of now, the total amount of uncollected fines has reached $10 billion. Although the SEC has increased the amount of fines due to political pressure in recent years, the actual amount of funds recovered is far less than the amount shown in the case. The article also mentioned that the issue highlights the limitations of the SEC in enforcement and fund recovery, and has also raised questions about its enforcement effectiveness.