![]() ![]() It has in the past delisted tokens the SEC named as securities and aborted its lending service.īut to all appearances, the SEC is gunning for the core of Coinbase’s business. Most SEC cases in the crypto sphere have ended in settlements, which Coinbase likely sought prior to going public with the Wells Notice. NOW READ: Stablecoin with 40% of its reserves in Signature defies bank crisis fallout And it became the only crypto exchange to go public in the US on the very same day that the Senate confirmed Gensler. If criminal in nature, the Department of Justice would take point on those cases.The DOJ said in December it is probing possible money laundering and criminal sanctions violations at Binance.īinance chief strategy officer told The Wall Street Journal that he expects the firm will pay a fine to settle its probes, which also includes a Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigation into whether Binance offered crypto derivatives to US clients without registering with the agency.īinance faces other hurdles, among them: Its auditor stopped servicing crypto clients.Ĭoinbase is a star performer in many roles of the crypto market that Gensler has said are masquerading as anything other than securities intermediaries. But that doesn’t mean stablecoins are free and clear. Meaningfully, they did not touch Paxos’ own PUSD. The SEC did recently step into the stablecoin market to shut down Paxos’ maintenance of Binance’s stablecoin. NOW READ: Crypto investors drive USDC rebound amid Silicon Valley Bank fallout “I continue to believe, quite strongly, that stablecoins should be regulated in the same manner as money market mutual funds because they operate on the same basic premise - we commit not to break the buck,” Bert Ely, a financial services consultant and founder of Ely & Co, told DL News. The other branches of the Biden administration - notably the Treasury - spent much of 2022 overtly pushing for legislation on stablecoins, which would in theory stake out the boundaries of agency reach without leaving it up to the SEC to duke out in court.īut the administration has clearly soured on stablecoins, with an economic report released this week comparing them unfavourably to a central bank digital currency and linking them to money market funds, which are already regulated by the SEC. “Binance’s operations have been so void of transparency and sunlight that there’s a need for criminal prosecutorial and civil regulatory intervention,” Stark said.īinance did not respond to a request for comment. John Reed Stark, former director of the SEC’s office of internet enforcement, said that while the SEC has hinted that stablecoins may be next in the SEC’s crosshairs, he has another theory: “Binance, or maybe Tether.” I mean an enforcement action brought against a stablecoin issuer for the issuance of an unregistered security.” “I don’t mean a stablecoin used in connection with fraud. Moustakis led many of the SEC’s earliest lawsuits involving Bitcoin while an attorney in its enforcement division up through the initial coin offering era. “The fate of Coinbase is largely the fate of centralised exchanges and their relationship to the SEC,” Phil Moustakis, a partner at Seward & Kissel, told DL News. ![]() NOW READ: Bank regulators won’t ban crypto, they’ll ‘starve’ it The industry’s large intermediaries say that the SEC stonewalls registration - thus the efforts look like an attempt to kill the industry outright. Gensler allies say he’s making them obey the law or leave. Coinbase’s pending legal showdown with the US markets regulator has the crypto industry wondering who’s next.Ĭoinbase, a target for the Securities and Exchange Commission since Gary Gensler took over as chair, this week received a Well’s Notice - a formal declaration of the SEC’s intent to bring a lawsuit.Ĭoinbase echoed the industry’s main complaint: The SEC claims participants should come in and register. ![]()
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