SEC Is Apparently Investigating All US Crypto Exchanges

By Kevin • August 5, 2022 4:42 pm • Comments

It looks like Coinbase is not the only crypto exchange that the SEC has its eyes on.

Recent news have revealed that the government agency probing into Binance and every other major US crypto exchange indicating that the SEC is starting to become aggressive when it comes to crypto regulation.

Sources say that this may be part of the SEC’s plan to establish itself as the country’s chief crypto regulator despite a lot of negative pushback from both Congress and the crypto community.

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This also comes during a time when the CFTC may start to take over some of the regulatory authority of the SEC according to a recent proposed bill from the Senate.

CryptoBriefing.com reports:

The CFTC has maintained authority over “virtual currencies” since 2014, but in recent years, the SEC has made it clear that it wants to hold court over the space.

SEC chair Gary Gensler has warned on multiple occasions that many crypto tokens could qualify as unregistered securities, and last week the agency gave its strongest hint yet that it wants to clamp down on the nascent market.

In a court filing alleging that a former Coinbase employee and two of his associates had engaged in insider trading, the SEC claimed that the exchange lets customers trade “at least nine” unregistered securities.

While the Coinbase insider trading allegations sent shockwaves across the industry, the SEC’s claim was also notable in that it has never previously targeted an exchange over its supported tokens.

It then emerged that the regulator was probing Coinbase. Binance.US responded by delisting one of the tokens mentioned, AMP.

Gary Gensler, the current chair of the SEC, has also stated in the past that he did not believe that there was any difference between a crypto exchange and a stock exchange.

As a result, he believes that all this crypto businesses should fall under the domain of the SEC which has received a lot of criticism.

So far, exchanges seem to tolerate the SEC’s actions due to the fact that they are trying to stay compliant with the country’s regulations which have been largely confusing and unclear.

The SEC is also continuing to claim that certain digital assets on these exchanges are securities as they recently did with the AMP token on Binance.

The current lawsuit against Ripple will likely be a critical point that will determine how much power the SEC has when it comes to crypto regulation in the future.

CryptoBriefing concludes:

While the SEC has recently been escalating its efforts to regulate the digital assets space, the CFTC has also been handed a possible route to establish more oversight on cryptocurrencies.

This week, the Senate Agriculture Committee introduced the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022.

If passed, the new bill would see Bitcoin and Ethereum classified as commodities and give the CFTC oversight of exchanges that list them for trading.

With Bitcoin and Ethereum holding the top two spots on the crypto leaderboard, that would include Binance’s U.S. division, Coinbase, and every other major crypto exchange.

The proposed legislation could theoretically still see other tokens classified as securities and therefore fall under the SEC’s purview. However, the bill would have to pass through Congress to come into effect, meaning the CFTC and SEC clashes could continue for some time yet.

Also, does the SEC even have the capability or resources to investigate every single crypto exchange?

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