Evidence shows that, within a few months of FTX’s November 2022 bankruptcy, multiple top‑level U.S. policymakers and regulators did move quickly to tighten oversight and ramp up enforcement in crypto.

Timeline and actors

• FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, and Sam Bankman‑Fried resigned as CEO the same day. (en.wikipedia.org) Within weeks, Congress held high‑profile hearings: the House Financial Services Committee’s “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part I” on December 13, 2022, and the Senate Banking Committee’s “Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and the Harm to Consumers” on December 14, 2022, explicitly framing the collapse as a systemic warning and promising stronger oversight. (congress.gov)
• On January 3 and 5, 2023, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC issued their first joint statement on crypto‑asset risks to banking organizations, highlighting “significant volatility and vulnerabilities” in the crypto sector over the past year and warning that certain crypto activities are “highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices.” They pledged to closely monitor banks’ crypto exposures and issue further guidance as needed—effectively tightening supervisory expectations around crypto at the core of the banking system. (federalreserve.gov)
• On January 27, 2023, the White House published “The Administration’s Roadmap to Mitigate Cryptocurrencies’ Risks.” It explicitly references that “a major cryptocurrency exchange collapsed” in 2022 and says agencies are using their authorities “to ramp up enforcement” and issuing new guidance, while urging Congress to expand regulators’ powers, strengthen penalties, and limit crypto’s risks to financial stability. (bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov) This is a direct, top‑level policy response from the Executive Branch linking the year’s turmoil (including FTX) to tougher oversight and enforcement.

Enforcement ramp‑up

• The SEC’s crypto enforcement actions jumped sharply after FTX: an analysis of SEC press releases shows at least a 183% increase in crypto‑related enforcement actions in the six months following FTX’s November 2022 bankruptcy, compared with the prior six months. (cointelegraph.com)
• On February 9, 2023, less than three months after the collapse, the SEC charged Kraken over its staking‑as‑a‑service program; Kraken agreed to shut down U.S. staking and pay $30 million in disgorgement and penalties. The SEC characterized this as a warning that crypto intermediaries must comply with securities laws and provide full investor protections. (sec.gov)
• In June 2023, the SEC filed major civil actions against Binance (13 charges including operating unregistered exchanges, broker‑dealers, and clearing agencies, and unregistered token and staking offerings) and Coinbase (operating as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency, and running an unregistered staking program). (sec.gov) These cases targeted the largest global and U.S. crypto exchanges and marked a clear escalation in enforcement strategy.
• Separately, in November 2023 the U.S. Department of Justice and CFTC announced a sweeping criminal and civil resolution with Binance: CZ and Binance pleaded guilty to serious Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions‑related violations, and Binance agreed to pay about $4.3 billion in combined penalties and accept an independent compliance monitor, with the CFTC describing Binance’s conduct as willfully evading U.S. law. (justice.gov)

Assessment relative to the prediction

• Chamath’s prediction was that, in response to FTX, “top‑level” U.S. policymakers and regulators would move quickly—within months—to impose or push for much stricter oversight and enforcement in crypto.
• The record shows that, within roughly 2–3 months, the White House issued a policy roadmap explicitly calling for ramped‑up enforcement and more regulatory powers; federal banking regulators jointly tightened supervisory expectations around banks’ crypto exposure; and the SEC began a marked enforcement surge, culminating in shutdown of Kraken’s U.S. staking service by February 2023 and landmark lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance by June 2023. (bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov)
• While later political changes (in 2025) led to some of these cases being dropped and guidance withdrawn, those reversals occurred well after the “within months” horizon and do not change the fact that the initial response was indeed fast, high‑level, and substantially more aggressive.

Given this sequence, the prediction that top‑tier U.S. policymakers and regulators would subject crypto to heightened scrutiny and act quickly with stricter oversight and enforcement in the wake of FTX is best judged as right.