The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase on Monday for operating as a stock exchange and stock broker without being registered, according to an official statement.
After learning of the lawsuit, the platform’s shares sank more than 15% in electronic activities prior to the opening of the New York Stock Exchange.
Filing a complaint in federal court, the agency claimed that Coinbase’s failure to register “has deprived investors of important protections, including SEC scrutiny, record-keeping requirements, and safeguards against conflicts of interest, among others,” said the US agency.
This legal action comes a day after the SEC filed a complaint against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, for improperly managing its users’ funds and lying to investors and regulators, among other things.
In a statement, the SEC ensures that Coinbase did not register the supply and demand of its cryptocurrency staking or betting service or its operations as a clearing house to guarantee exchanges between investors, credit institutions and other financial agents.
“Since at least 2019, Coinbase has made billions of dollars illegally facilitating the buying and selling of crypto-asset securities,” the SEC maintains in the note, insisting that Coinbase mixes traditional stock market services with those of a stockbroker without having registered any of those functions.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the fact that Coinbase is not registered has deprived investors of protections, such as inspection by the SEC or safeguards for potential conflicts of interest.
“You can not simply ignore the rules because they are not to your taste or because you prefer different ones: the consequences for the investing public are too important“, said the director of the Compliance Division of the SEC, Gurbir Grewal, quoted in the notice.
Yesterday the SEC filed a total of 13 charges against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, whom it accuses of blatantly ignoring US stock market laws and earning billions of dollars in exchange for putting Binance’s assets at “significant risk”. Your clients.
“Zhao and the Binance entities were not only aware of the rules but consciously chose to evade them and put their clients and investors at risk, all in an attempt to maximize their own profits,” Binance Chairman Gary said in a statement.