Shares in Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), the only publicly traded pure-play crypto exchange and digital asset ecosystem, sank over 9% today as the news filtered out that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had filed 13 individual charges against Binance, Binance.US and its founder Chengpang Zhao. As one of the SEC’s allegations is that Binance is operating an unregistered securities exchange, there is fear that Coinbase may get hit by some collateral damage.
The SEC has already claimed that Coinbase has traded in digital asset securities – something Coinbase refutes. But with Binance under the gun, the drums are pounding more loudly.
Top cryptocurrencies also stumbled today as Bitcoin was down by around 6% in the past 24 hours – trading under $26K – with Ethereum losing over 5% in value.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives has circulated draft legislation for comprehensive digital asset regulation. This has been the goal of the industry for years now but the question remains if the House can get something viable put together AND get it passed by the Senate prior to the SEC’s guillotine approach impacting firms like Coinbase and others. Current SEC Chair Gary Gensler has long held that all digital assets are securities, with the exception of Bitcoin, challenging just about the entire crypto exchange market.
Today we charged Binance Holdings Ltd. (Binance); U.S.-based affiliate, BAM Trading Services Inc., which, together with Binance, operates https://t.co/swcxioZKVP; and their founder, Changpeng Zhao, with a variety of securities law violations.https://t.co/H1wgGgR5ir pic.twitter.com/IWTb7Et86H
— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) June 5, 2023
