SEC Suits Against Binance And Coinbase Rock The Crypto Industry

Steven Ehrlich, the director of research for Forbes Digital Assets, joins "Forbes Talks" to discuss the state of the crypto market and his conversation with Coinbase's chief legal officer amid the SEC lawsuits.

The SEC Comes For Crypto!

This week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), filed lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, two of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges, on which investors buy and trade a large offering of cryptocurrencies. 

The SEC’s main allegation against Coinbase is that it’s running an unregistered securities exchange — like if the Nasdaq independently operated without any regulatory oversight. Binance faces the same charge, as well as additional accusations that it appropriated billions of dollars in customers’ funds for its CEO’s trading firm, misled its customers, lied to regulators, and more. 

Binance is accused of moving money from the US business to pay for a Yacht for the exchange founder Changpeng Zhao.

How will regulation affect America's crypto industry?

On June 6th the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Coinbase, the US’s largest crypto exchange, for failing to register as a broker, exchange or clearinghouse of securities. When markets opened, Coinbase’s share price dropped by a fifth.

The day before the SEC had sued Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange—alleging both that it offered securities-trading services without the necessary registrations, and that it had placed customer funds in a trading outfit owned by its boss, Changpeng Zhao. Binance rejected all the allegations and said it would “vigorously defend” itself.

At the core of both lawsuits is the idea that many cryptocurrencies are in fact securities. American law defines securities to include any “investment contract” that produces an asset for which an owner can expect to accrue returns depending on the effort of a promoter.

So, how will this affect the US crypto industry? Read the full article HERE.

Crypto frenzy is rife with ‘hucksters, fraudsters, scam artists’

The current crypto frenzy is “reminiscent of what we had in the 1920s before the federal securities laws were put in place,” said U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler. He went on to add that “... Hucksters. Fraudsters. Scam artists. Ponzi schemes. The public is left in line at the bankruptcy court.”

“The crypto securities markets should not be allowed to undermine the well-earned trust the public has in the capital markets,” Gensler said. “The crypto markets should not be allowed to harm investors.”

The SEC this week brought separate actions against Binance and Coinbase, alleging they had unlawfully offered securities intermediation functions without registering them with the regulatory agency. The agency also alleged Coinbase commingled its exchange, broker-dealer and clearinghouse functions. The SEC also accused Binance of commingling investors’ assets.

Read the full article HERE.