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> Because, what if there are more Americans who've made money than those who have lost?

Why does this matter? Even if Americans are scamming foreigners (0 Americans losing money), that doesn’t make this legal.

The difference between aapl and coinbase is there is regulatory audits of the books and required publications about the health of the security. There are rules about insider trading and insurance protections if a brokerage mishandles your money (see Blockfi).

> Why does this matter?

Because the parent said "that many Americans lost money over". Plus the SEC is "protecting investors". So I'm asking, what if there are more people who've made money over those who lost? Does that mean life's good? Coinbase has been pretty transparent about their operations. Not only transparent, they've publicly mentioned several times how frustrated they are dealing with SEC, the organization that is slow to come up with various legal requirements for the cryptocurrency industry. In a way, Coinbase helps the SEC to raise their own bar.

Would the SEC be protecting investors if they allow 1 investor to get scammed to the benefit of 2+ investors?

We need systems in place where everyone can make trustworthy investments. If people can't feel safe (even if it's one person or many people), then our economy will slow down (see current crypto prices post-terra, ftx, and more).

> This requires a citation with data points, eg how many Americans lost money, how much money did they lose, etc.

My coworker lost $X0,000 over Celsius.

So yes, maybe this is a personal bias. But its based in reality. His entire account at Celsius is written off. He managed to save his money from Voyager. I got cousins who lost money in FTX. Different people, but same overall problem.

If my personal social circle is showing huge losses in these companies, I have to imagine that other people out there have similar experiences. I don't need a study to prove the facts, I just talk to my cousins / coworkers / other people who are directly affected.

EDIT: I forgot about this lovely thing: https://cases.stretto.com/public/x191/11749/PLEADINGS/117491...

See page 34, containing links to the customers who lost money in celsius. For the list of customers starting with the letter "A": https://cases.stretto.com/public/x191/11749/CORRESPONDENCE/1...

There, that's Celsius alone. Is that enough proof for ya?

> Because, what if there are more Americans who've made money than those who have lost?

Its not about making or losing money. Its about accounts disappearing because they've been lied to.

We're all adults here. We know that investments can lose money. But lying about those investments is where the law needs to step in. Liars need to be punished. And I get that people have been skirting the truth recently. But when we get to Celsius, Voyager, and FTX, the money was just straight up being stolen. Its the worst case offenders.

So now we need to think about what kind of culture caused these crimes. And its increasingly looking like "staking", and the culture surrounding it, is to blame.

> If my personal social circle is showing huge losses in these companies, I have to imagine that other people out there have similar experiences.

This is a personal bias. I've made $86,000 trading Ethereum. My brother-in-law made $24,000 trading Bitcoin. My reality is different from your reality ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can't speak for Celsius, Voyager, and FTX. If there was a scam, it has to be punished. No questions asked. But Coinbase has been closely working with SEC for years.

> I've made $86,000 trading Ethereum

That's not the problem.

The problem is that companies like Celsius, FTX, and Voyager are disappearing and collapsing.

Binance and Coinbase are two other companies that could just randomly disappear because of how incredibly sketchy their products are (especially "Earn" or "Staking" products).

I'm pointing out companies that collapse (taking literally Billions of American money away). And you're just coming in here saying "But I made money on something totally unrelated", as if its a good argument?

> This is a personal bias.

I'll proudly be biased in favor of reality. There's nothing wrong with taking a stance when my real world friends get affected.

> I can't speak for Celsius, Voyager, and FTX. If there was a scam, it has to be punished. No questions asked. But Coinbase has been closely working with SEC for years.

Coinbase is doing the same thing as Celsius, Voyager, and FTX with their Earn / Staking products. And now the SEC is suing them over it.

There's a pattern here. And I for one, am glad that the SEC is no longer fickle and is trying to be proactive about it. Trying to get American money out of these dangerous instruments before they collapse, rather than after (when its too late).

Dude, I made that comment in response to your "My coworker lost $X0,000 over Celsius" to highlight the fact that not everyone's circle is losing money.

> Coinbase is doing the same thing as Celsius, Voyager, and FTX with their Earn / Staking products. And now the SEC is suing them over it.

Why can't SEC work with Coinbase before suing them? Again, Coinbase has been seeking help from SEC for years. Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, talked about this so many times. They are trying to work with the regulators, but the problem is that the regulators lack expertise dealing with these new asset types.

> Why can't SEC work with Coinbase before suing them? Again, Coinbase has been seeking help from SEC for years.

How has Coinbase been "seeking help"? They are a company, they should be going to the SEC with all of the particulars of each of their investment items and saying to the SEC "We believe we have met your standards of fiduciary duty on these items that appear to be securities, have we?" They shouldn't be saying, "Hey, SEC, are these things we're selling securities, and thus need a higher standard of duty of care? Tee hee, we can't figure it out on our own, as we're just a little company with thousands of employees trading billions of dollars a year. Until you get back to us we'll just assume that they aren't securities and won't bother meeting the higher standard of care."

They filed a petition which SEC failed to address. The result is Coinbase suing SEC. Now, SEC sues Coinbase back. Seriously, wtf? SEC needs a massive slap on their hands. If they lack expertise and don't have enough knowledge (literally), then whoever works there should go "back to school" (figuratively speaking), learn all the ins and outs of crypto, and only after consider joining the SEC as an employee.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/c5bd0wqjc7v0/5PWsXaPsqQ61gA9wlF...

    Coinbase brings this mandamus action to seek modest, but meaningful and time-sensitive, relief: a writ requiring the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) to act on Coinbase’s pending rulemaking petition to provide clarity for the crypto industry. Coinbase does not ask the Court to instruct the agency how to respond. It simply requests that the Court order the SEC to respond at all. The Commission has repeatedly demonstrated that its mind is made up to deny the petition. But the Commission’s delay in formally announcing that decision has enabled it to improperly delay judicial review at a critical moment for the industry.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-102

> “We allege that Coinbase, despite being subject to the securities laws, commingled and unlawfully offered exchange, broker-dealer, and clearinghouse functions,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “In other parts of our securities markets, these functions are separate. Coinbase’s alleged failures deprive investors of critical protections, including rulebooks that prevent fraud and manipulation, proper disclosure, safeguards against conflicts of interest, and routine inspection by the SEC. Further, as we allege, Coinbase never registered its staking-as-a-service program as required by the securities laws, again depriving investors of critical disclosure and other protections.”

Seems rather straightforward to me given this press release.

Quit comingling functions. Bring your exchange to proper legal structure in the USA. Split the broker-dealer and clearinghouse functions off.

And quit operating Coinbase Earn, which is an obvious security by any other name. Either that, or properly register Coinbase Earn as a security before offering it as a product to the public. If you are to keep operating Coinbase Earn, then bring it under security regulations, which means reporting upon your assets and such under whatever filing system you want (probably bonds?)

Its... not even that hard to read the SEC complaint. Just read it, the complaint is right there for all of us to see.

This is indeed straightforward, but I'm not complaining about it. If all of these requirements had been outlined by the SEC prior to the release of the products, Coinbase would've followed the rules. Now when all of these products are in production, the SEC woke up and like: "heeey, this is a security, you must follow the rules". But there were no rules before. So, shall Coinbase just sit there and wait while the SEC learns more about blockchains? I don't know if there was any "warning" from the SEC, but if not, they should've published a public one first: "Due to X, Y and Z, the SEC gives Coinbase 6 months to split the broker-dealer and clearinghouse functions off".

> But there were no rules before.

The rules always were there. Just that the SEC was willing to turn a blind eye for years on this issue.

The reason why SEC couldn't ignore this anymore is FTX and SBF. It became clear that cryptocoins are full of fraudsters, and the cryptocoin community has absolutely no way to differentiate from the fraudsters and the legitimate groups.

SEC is simply not in a position to keep turning a blind eye to the cryptocoin world after $10,000,000,000+ was stolen by FTX and SBF.

> Dude, I made that comment in response to your "My coworker lost $X0,000 over Celsius" to highlight the fact that not everyone's circle is losing money.

But you making money doesn't allow my friend, or anyone from FTX, or Voyager to get their money back.

And you fail to see that it is HOW he lost money that I take issue with. Celsius lied about unregulated staking/interest yielding instruments to him and the natur of how it worked.

And Coinbase is making the same lie right now with Coinbase Earn. And you are sitting here defending it, and ignoring three major collapses last year while doing so.

That's irrelevant.

By definition, Ponzi schemes involve some investors making a lot of money and others losing. That doesn't make them any less illegal.

If some people are harmed by unlawful behavior, that is a reason to prosecute, just the same as if you mugged Alice and bought Bob an icecream with the proceeds.

Would pumping Bob's stomach be an unreasonable seizure? How can Alice be made whole if it is?

Gains and losses between different investors don't net out. The SEC is interested in protecting the investors who lost (or would lose).

> How's TD Ameritrade protecting me from losing money?

https://www.tdameritrade.com/regulation-best-interest-and-fo...