Seems strange kraken would stop supporting the ability to stake ETH if your claim was true. Thats a ton of money for them to throw away just for fun.
SEC rarely does it’s job until it’s too late and only after someone else has done all the work for them.
Basically
A) Kraken’s staking service was a little different, but
B) Kraken didn't fight it and the CEO resigned. Jesse was just over it and not willing to fight. Jesse grandstanded against New York’s bitlicense for nearly a decade, continued Monero support in Europe while dropping it in the UK, he’s had his fight and wants to do other things with his life.
On the UK Monero stance “Unfortunately, we have to pick our battles and look out for the broader business in the country.”
There are pretty decent arguments why the other prongs fail as well.
What can be a security, is if a provider offered a managed yield service promising a certian return and guaranteed instant liquidity and then used staking in the background to generate that yield. This is what got Kraken in trouble. And why they settled so easily. Where Coinbase falls is going to heavily depend on the specific facts of their service.
Validating by running your own node is a-ok. Sending your tokens to Coinbase, a registered public company, who is pinky-promising you they will give you 8% returns every year, without registering this product with SEC, is not a-ok. How is that hard to understand?