SEC demand to Coinbase: Before suing Coinbase in June, the SEC reportedly ordered them to stop trading all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin. CEO Brian Armstrong warned that granting this request would have crushed the US crypto business. Armstrong stated that the law did not compel him.
“At that point, we didn’t have much of a choice. “Delisting every asset except bitcoin, which is not what the law states, would have put an end to the crypto sector in the US,” Armstrong told the Financial Times (FT) on Monday.
Instead of fixing the issue, Coinbase went to court to investigate. Armstrong stated, “It kind of made my decision easy: Let’s go to court and see what the judge says.”
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Coinbase broke the law since it wasn’t registered as an exchange and traded at least 13 crypto assets the SEC considered equities. Solano, Cardano, and Polygon were tokens.
It’s surprising the SEC’s enforcement division didn’t push firms to remove crypto assets from their lists. Instead, they may inform investigators their views on securities law-related activities.
The SEC is suing Coinbase as part of Chair Gary Gensler‘s aim to control “the Wild West” cryptocurrency industry, which worries U.S. capital market investors. Crypto businesses argue the SEC’s guidelines are unclear and that it’s overstepping its bounds by trying to govern them.
Reuters requested the SEC and Coinbase to reply to the FT piece, but neither has.
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