When top Biden administration officials gathered last month at the Justice Department to announce a $4.3bn legal resolution with Binance, one powerful regulator was absent.

Attorney general Merrick Garland was there. So was Treasury secretary Janet Yellen. But Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler wasn’t, even though he has his own legal beef with Binance. The SEC sued the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in June and has been the regulatory scourge of the crypto world.