Coinbase wants its SEC lawsuit dismissed, arguing it doesn’t deal in securities

has filed a a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit in which the company accused the corporate of illegally working an unregistered nationwide securities trade, dealer and clearing company. Coinbase claims that, as a result of it doesn’t deal in securities, the SEC has no authority over its operations.

“Our core argument is simple — we do not offer ‘investment contracts’ as that term has been construed by decades of Supreme Court and other binding precedent,” Coinbase’s chief authorized officer Paul Grewal . “By ignoring that precedent, the has violated due process, abused its discretion and abandoned its own earlier interpretations of the securities laws. By ignoring that precedent, the SEC has trampled the strict boundaries on its basic authority set by Congress.”

. It stated Coinbase raked in billions of {dollars} since at the least 2019 by “unlawfully facilitating the buying and selling of crypto asset securities.”

In its movement to dismiss, Coinbase cited a separate SEC case. A choose dominated in July that Ripple Labs’ XRP was not thought of a safety when bought on exchanges (although institutional gross sales of XRP fell underneath securities rules, the choose decided).

However, that exact level could not work in Coinbase’s favor. This week, a unique choose disagreed with the Ripple ruling and stated the SEC may proceed with a case towards Terraform Labs and its CEO Do Kwon. That consists of claims involving gross sales made on exchanges and . As  notes, neither the Ripple nor the Terraform swimsuit is a controlling precedent in the Coinbase case.

Intriguingly, Coinbase has the cryptocurrencies which might be bought on its platform are extra like baseball playing cards than securities. It makes the case that baseball playing cards are commodities that folks purchase and promote in the hope they may develop in worth.