Global Courant
Cryptocurrency prices were slightly higher on Tuesday after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto service provider Coinbase.
Bitcoin climbed 2% to $26,061.00, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier it fell to $25,368.57, the lowest level since March. Ether also gained 2% to trade at $1,842.60.
On Tuesday, the SEC filed a lawsuit in New York federal court alleging that Coinbase acted as an unregistered broker and exchange. The agency demanded that the company be “permanently restrained and ordered” to continue doing so.
“If there is real value in these crypto tokens, then compliance will build confidence and the business model could change,” SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Tuesday. “What we’re doing at the SEC is pro-innovation because the capital markets really don’t work.”
“There is a lot of work for the crypto field here, but we are ready to work to make them compliant,” he added.
The complaint listed 13 crypto assets on Coinbase that could be considered “crypto asset securities” by the regulator, including popular coins Solana (SOL), which was just above the flat line after falling 3% following the new one. Polygons Matic token fell 3%.
The news came a day after the SEC alleged that Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world by volume, and its co-founder, Changpeng Zhao, had broken securities laws. Cryptocurrency prices fell to their lowest level since March on Monday following the complaint against Binance.
Binance Coin, a token used to pay transaction and trading fees on the Binance exchange, was down less than 1% after falling 9.5% on Monday.
US regulators are cracking down on crypto companies. Since January, the SEC has charged Kraken, Genesis and Gemini Trust with offering unregistered securities to investors.
It also issued a Wells Notice to Coinbase earlier this year warning the company about potential securities charges.
Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, called the Coinbase lawsuit “an important event that investors can look forward to,” speaking to CNBC Monday night.
“The (SEC)’s next move toward Coinbase is likely a signal that we are past or at least coming to the end of this period of regulatory dark clouds,” he said.
