Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wp-plugin-hostgator domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114

Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the ol-scrapes domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php:6114) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/rest-api/class-wp-rest-server.php on line 1893
{"id":34617,"date":"2023-06-08T21:43:03","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T21:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/06\/08\/the-secs-situationship-with-binance-and-coinbase-keeps-getting-messier\/"},"modified":"2023-06-08T21:43:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T21:43:05","slug":"the-secs-situationship-with-binance-and-coinbase-keeps-getting-messier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/06\/08\/the-secs-situationship-with-binance-and-coinbase-keeps-getting-messier\/","title":{"rendered":"The SEC\u2019s situationship with Binance and Coinbase keeps getting messier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/06\/08\/sec-situationship-binance-coinbase\/<\/a><\/br>
\nThe SEC\u2019s situationship with Binance and Coinbase keeps getting messier<\/br>
\n2023-06-08 21:43:03<\/br><\/p>\n

\n

Follow me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek<\/a> for breaking crypto news, memes and more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome back to Chain Reaction.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been quite a long week (and it\u2019s not over yet).<\/p>\n

Unless you live under a rock, you know that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission came out guns blazing on Monday and Tuesday, by suing the two largest crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, respectively.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that the lawsuits were fairly different, although both exchanges faced securities laws violations. In the Binance suit, the exchange and its CEO Changpeng Zhao<\/a> as well as two other parties are facing 13 charges including lying to regulators about its operations.<\/p>\n

Binance\u2019s attorneys from Gibson Dunn and Latham & Watkins alleged that SEC Chair Gary Gensler offered to be an advisor to its crypto exchange in 2019, when Gensler was teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u2019s Sloan School of Management, a filing on Wednesday stated.<\/p>\n

The SEC\u2019s investigations into Binance began in 2020 and 2021, about a year after Gensler and Zhao allegedly last spoke.<\/p>\n

Given the claimed ties between Gensler and Binance and Zhao, the exchange\u2019s lawyers asked the SEC for his withdrawal from any actions regarding the company, but the attorney\u2019s said they haven\u2019t gotten a response from the agency.<\/p>\n

Separately, the SEC\u2019s lawsuit against Coinbase came less than 24 hours after the Binance one, but was focused on the exchange operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency, the agency alleged.<\/p>\n

Both filings listed a handful of cryptocurrencies as securities, with 12 assets noted in the Binance suit and 13 in the Coinbase one, though the SEC said it was \u201cnot limited to\u201d those.<\/p>\n

Even through all this chaos, crypto markets weren\u2019t hugely altered by the SEC suits. In the initial 24 hours after the two lawsuits, the crypto market was green.<\/p>\n

But since then, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin and Ether, fell 2% and less than 1%<\/a>, respectively, over the past seven days, CoinMarketCap data showed. The global crypto market cap decreased 2.7% to $1.1 trillion<\/a>, during the same time frame.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spoken with countless sources, read far too many court documents and interviewed Coinbase\u2019s chief legal officer Paul Grewal to make sense of this week\u2019s pandemonium. More details and deep dives can be found below in chronological order.<\/p>\n

This week in web3<\/strong><\/h3>\n

SEC sues Binance and CEO Zhao over alleged mishandling funds, lying to regulators<\/a><\/p>\n

The charges also included misleading investors about Binance\u2019s systems to detect and control manipulative trading; regulators say that the exchange didn\u2019t take proper steps to restrict U.S.-based investors from accessing its platform. The SEC also alleges that cryptocurrency BNB and stablecoin BUSD are securities. Binance claimed in a post on Monday it actively cooperated with the SEC\u2019s investigations and recently engaged in discussions to reach a \u201cnegotiated settlement to resolve their investigations,\u201d however the SEC \u201cabandoned that process and instead chose to act unilaterally and litigate.\u201d<\/p>\n

SEC\u2019s lawsuit against Binance and CEO Zhao was a matter of \u2018when, not if,\u2019 industry players say<\/a> (TC+)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of sources that TechCrunch+ spoke to on Monday shared similar sentiments that the charges against Binance were unsurprising. Binance.US has been in \u201chot water for a while,\u201d Chris Martin, head of research at Amberdata, said. \u201cJust look at the CFTC suit against them, which appears to have been a warning shot.\u201d The SEC\u2019s action comes a few months after the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Binance and Zhao for allegedly evading U.S. rules by offering unregistered futures and options contracts to American traders.<\/p>\n

SEC claims BNB and BUSD are securities, including major tokens like SOL, ADA and MATIC<\/a> (TC+)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Binance lawsuit, the SEC alleged that the exchange\u2019s cryptocurrency BNB and stablecoin BUSD were securities in addition to 10 other cryptocurrencies: Solana\u2019s SOL, Cardano\u2019s ADA, Polygon\u2019s MATIC, Filecoin\u2019s FIL, Cosmos\u2019 ATOM, Sandbox\u2019s SAND, Decentraland\u2019s MANA, Algorand\u2019s ALGO, Axie Infinity\u2019s AXS and Coti\u2019s COTI. What made the agency highlight these cryptocurrencies, and not the hundreds of others tradable assets on the exchange, is unclear.<\/p>\n

After Binance, US SEC sues Coinbase for securities laws violations<\/a> (TC+)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The SEC has lately taken an increasingly active role in the burgeoning blockchain sector, and previously served Coinbase with a Wells notice in April. Coinbase, in contrast, has taken a publicly defiant tone, arguing that the crypto market deserves a tailored package of rules. The SEC, however, disagrees, apparently determined on applying existing securities law to the American company.<\/p>\n

SEC Chair Gensler lambasts crypto industry after agency charges Binance, Coinbase<\/a> (TC+)<\/strong><\/p>\n

If it wasn\u2019t clear, the waters have been very <\/em>hot in the crypto industry this week, thanks to the SEC. The industry is asking why these suits took so long to come to fruition, why some crypto assets are being labeled as securities and not others and whether the SEC\u2019s actions will impact domestic and global fintech innovation \u2014 all of which SEC Chair Gary Gensler tried to address in a live interview with CNBC on Tuesday morning. \u201cThis is about both investors and issuers in the crypto space, to bring them into compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

As SEC files motion to freeze Binance assets, crypto market remains green<\/a><\/p>\n

After the SEC filed 13 charges against Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao, as well as BAM Trading and BAM Management, it has requested a temporary restraining order to freeze assets for all of the parties involved, according to a filing on Tuesday. The filing shows that the motion was granted.<\/p>\n

Coinbase chief legal officer expects new crypto laws to come in wake of SEC lawsuits<\/a> (TC+)<\/strong><\/p>\n

We sat down with Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, to learn more about the company\u2019s operations going forward, how it plans to deal with the legal process, its level of confidence amid the crackdown and plans for best and worst case scenarios. (The whole interview has also been shared in a bonus Chain Reaction episode.)<\/p>\n

The latest pod<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This week, we have a bonus episode<\/a>! Jacquelyn<\/a> interviewed Paul Grewal<\/a>, chief legal officer at Coinbase.<\/p>\n

Grewal has been at Coinbase, the second largest crypto exchange globally, for almost three years. Previously he was the vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, among other roles.<\/p>\n

This week, Grewal has been busy testifying before Congress and addressing recent legal ramifications Coinbase faced.<\/p>\n

We dove into:<\/p>\n