The SEC’s Gary Gensler is getting angry when asked about crypto.

Gary Gensler, the head of the United States securities regulator, seems to be fed up with answering questions about crypto – recently commenting that he receives a “disproportionately high ratio” of questions about it compared to traditional finance.

“Crypto is a small part of our overall markets,” Gensler said on CNBC's Squawk Box on May 7 in response to a question about where the Securities and Exchange Commission's priorities lie.

Gensler reviewed the comparison between the $110 trillion capital market, which the SEC oversees, and the $2.4 trillion crypto market — the latter of which has “the magnitude of manipulation and fraud and problems in our markets” because most of it doesn't meet US securities laws.

“And so, you end up with a ratio of market value to just journalistic questions and crypto journalists.”

Host Andrew Ross asked Sorkin if the media's questions about crypto were because that's where the SEC's attention is focused — to which Gensler quickly countered that “it's where your attention is.”

SEC Chairman @Gargensler: “Crypto is a small part of our overall markets. But it's a much bigger piece of the fraud and the fraud and the problems in our markets.” pic.twitter.com/UIbTLfTDuN

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 7, 2024

“Think about it. I've been on your show, what, a dozen times? And every show you ask about crypto,” the SEC boss said.

“My guess is that this is going to be the majority of the crypto interview. Capital markets are $110 trillion. So it's also where the financial media is focused.”

Gensler dodged back-and-forth questions — the first on the SEC's Wells announcement that Robinhood's crypto listing and watchdog breached security rules — saying he “can't talk to a single company.”

He said that investors are not getting “required or necessary information” about crypto and that “many tokens are securities under the law of the land, as interpreted by the US Supreme Court.”

Paul Grewal, Coinbase's head of legal, told Gensler on X, the company locked in a legal battle with the SEC: “Please stop misleading the market – tokens are not securities.”

“Despite your plea, your own lawyers have admitted this in court,” Grewal added.

Gensler also removed the answer if ether (ETH) is a security or not and if the SEC will approve a related exchange-traded fund (ETF) – only “those submissions will be taken at the appropriate time” five SEC commissioners.

Gensler defended House Financial Services Chairman Patrick McHenry's accusation that he “misled Congress” when he “refused to answer” questions about the SEC's classification of ETH.

“We don't claim to have an investigation,” he said. We don't talk about someone breaking the law in our opinion until we bring it up.

McHenry said Gensler's refusal to answer was a “deliberate attempt to misrepresent” the SEC's position that the regulator plans to regulate ETH as a security, citing Consensus' April lawsuit against the SEC.

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Gensler, however, argued that he told Congress “exactly what we're going to do.”

“We're going to be silent on a lot of the questions you might ask in this live interview or in a congressional hearing.”

The SEC has filed six crypto-related lawsuits so far this year — bringing 46 enforcement actions against crypto companies last year, a 10-year high and double the number from 2021.

At least a dozen court cases filed by the SEC are still working their way through U.S. courts, many of which accuse defendants of selling unregistered securities and trading illegally.

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