Coinbase wins against SEC lawsuit claiming it sold tokens illegally

reuters.com

24 points·iamnotarobotman··4 comments

They did not win a lawsuit "against the SEC".. a judge dismissed a class action lawsuit from Coinbase users who had accused Coinbase of selling unregistered securities. Very, very different things.

True, though the article does hint at such a lawsuit eventually being filed, similar to the Genesis and Gemini lawsuit, so those with interest in Coinbase shouldn't breathe too much of a sigh of relief:

"Last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission I(SEC) charged the now-bankrupt lender Genesis Global Capital and the exchange Gemini Trust, run by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, with selling unregistered securities.

Coinbase has said it has received SEC investigative subpoenas and information requests concerning its customer programs, including its processes for listing assets."

Wrong headline of bad article. Better article: [1]

The case is Underwood et al v. Coinbase Global, Inc. The decision doesn't seem to be visible online yet, short of logging into Pacer.

It was a weak case. The plaintiffs claimed that Coinbase was operating an unlicensed securities exchange and selling unregistered securities. They're probably right. The SEC can raise the unlicensed securities exchange issue, but has so far not chosen to do so for crypto exchanges which actually do what they say they're doing. The unregistered securities issue should have been raised against the issuer of the token, if there is one. Coinbase is just an intermediary here. Unlike, say, FTX, which issued its very own crap cryptocurrency.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-01/coinbase-...

Perhaps the title has changed, but it currently is "Coinbase wins dismissal of lawsuit claiming it sold tokens illegally", not the title submitted.

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