The CEO of Coinbase explains why the legal dispute of the SEC is not good for America

The CEO of Coinbase explains why the legal dispute of the SEC is not good for America

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, spoke in detail on Wednesday about his first reaction to the complaint of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Sec) against his stock exchange.

The board reacted to the claims of the second chairman Gary Gensler that the market did not need any further "digital currency" and discussed whether the SEC was in good faith.

an avalanche of currencies

in a (n Interview compared to the Squawk box from CNBC argued that Gensler was not able to win the technologies in the crypto area "We let the market decide".

Gensler spoke to CNBC about the lawsuit on Tuesday and claimed that "digital currency" already existed before crypto. "It's called US dollar, it's called euro or it is called Yen, at the moment they are all digital," he said.

Meanwhile, he questioned the applications of the more than 16,000 coins, which are available for retailing the self-controlling wallet from Coinbase, and argued that disclosures were necessary to clarify them. As Armstrong explained, the vast majority of these cryptos can only be traded on decentralized stock exchanges - not on the platform from Coinbase.

"We checked over 1000 crypto-assets-we reject over 90 % of them because we thought they were not suitable for our exchange," he said. Nevertheless, he emphasized that in addition to Fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies can also be used for payments, transfers, etc. Political donations and more.

The Tuesday the sec Submission called Trade on the platform from Coinbase, which is not registered securities, including Solana (Sol), Cardano (ADA) and Polygon (Matic). However, Armstrong and Coinbase have long disadvantaged as Gensler about what a “security” is, and argued that contradictory statements by the SEC and the CFTC would have led to ambiguities with regard to the actual rules.

"This is not good for America, it is not good for industry," he said, explaining that clarity must now be brought about The dishes .

did the SEC "change" its opinion of Coinbase?

Coinbase and Armstrong have previously argued that the SEC was informed in its S1 registration form what the business practices of Coinbase would look like. This also includes the plan to offer a staking-as-a-service product from which the SEC claimed in its complaint that it should have been registered with the agency before the introduction.

The CNBC panelists, however, found that the regulatory authority had clarified in its registration form that its S1 permit did not equalize "confirmation of the legality of the underlying business of the issuer".

to the people who post that it is unfair that the SEC submits a lawsuit after it has approved the IPO of Coinbase: please stop. @Coinbase It was warned that the approval of the registration declaration does not mean that business is based. It is in the complaint. pic.twitter.com/vvrywd4pkd

- Joe Carlasare (@Joecarlasare) 6. June 2023

While Armstrong granted that a regulatory authority had the right to "come back and to change their opinion", his company does not share the legal interpretation of the authority that all crypto-assets apply Style = "Font-Weight: 400"> are securities.

"This industry will simply not exist in the United States if you represent this point of view," he said.

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