SEC investigates Coinbase, says it may have illegally sold unregistered securities

Coinbase is facing an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over whether it allowed users to trade digital tokens that should have been registered as securities. or not, Bloomberg reported. Coinbase, indirectly involved in other exploration by the SEC and the state of New York, recently caught the eye of the regulator after expanding the number of tokens it offers for trading.

After taking a conservative approach to listing cryptocurrencies, Coinbase now allows Americans to trade over 150 tokens, according to Cointelegraph. Bloomberg. If any of those are considered securities, it will need to be registered as an exchange with the SEC. A token is considered a security if it involves investors giving capital to a company to profit from the work of the management.

Last week, rose accused A former Coinbase employee violated insider trading rules by helping his brother and a friend buy dozens of different tokens before they were listed on the platform. Coinbase itself has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but the SEC said it considers 9 of the dozens of digital tokens traded by the men to be securities, including 7 listed listed by the exchange.

In one react by chief legal officer Paul Grewal, Coinbase said that it “does not list securities on the platform. Time.” As proof of that, the US Department of Justice “reviewed similar facts [as the SEC] and chose not to file securities fraud charges against those involved. ”

Coinbase has previously complained that there is no regulatory framework for digital asset securities. As it happened, the company filed a rule request to clarify those rules shortly before the SEC filed the charges. “Rather than crafting the right rules in a comprehensive and transparent way, the SEC is relying on these types of one-time enforcement actions to try to bring all digital assets into its jurisdiction. , even those properties Not stocks,” wrote Grewal.