![]() The CFTC accused Celsius of acting as an “unregistered commodity pool operator of the Celsius Pool by soliciting, accepting, and receiving assets for the purpose of trading commodity interests” and for defrauding investors. It also announced a $4.7 billion settlement with Celsius - but not Mashinsky. The FTC accused Celsius of duping customers into depositing crypto by claiming that deposits were safe. The SEC accused both the bankrupt lender and its former CEO of unregistered and “fraudulent” crypto asset sales. On the same day, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Mashinsky as well. The Federal Trade Commission, SEC, Commodities and Futures Trading Commission all filed suits against Celsius, with a few naming ex-CEO Alex Mashinsky. Unlike the rest of the cases, Celsius didn’t face just one suit. Similarly to the suit against Binance, this case is ongoing. In its case against the SEC (not the SEC’s case against Coinbase, don’t get them confused!) Coinbase tried to push the SEC for clarity on crypto regulation. It’s also claimed that the regulator can’t “seize power” in regulating crypto, and therefore doesn’t have the authority it claims to bring a case against the exchange. That difference? Coinbase is being accused in a “straight registration violations case.”īut let’s talk about a similarity the two have, which brings us right back to the major questions doctrine.Ĭoinbase has also used major questions in its attempt to dismiss the suit. One lawyer told Blockworks at the time that while there were similarities between the Coinbase and Binance suits, there’s a “fundamental difference” between them. “But while paying lip service to its desire to comply with applicable laws, Coinbase has for years made available for trading crypto assets that are investment contracts under the Howey test and well-established principles of the federal securities laws,” the SEC claimed in June. On June 6, the SEC announced that it was targeting Coinbase for alleged securities violations and accused it of operating as an unregistered exchange. In fact, Coinbase had actually served the SEC with a suit prior to the SEC serving Coinbase. ![]() ![]() The US-based exchange had already received a Wells notice, which is the SEC’s warning before action is taken, earlier this year. While some of the accusations in the Binance suit may have come as a shock, the Coinbase suit wasn’t too surprising. This time, the regulatory agency targeted Coinbase. CoinbaseĪ mere day after the SEC targeted Binance, it unveiled another lawsuit. Now, keep the overreach argument in mind for Coinbase. The SEC, in its response, said that the invocation of the major questions doctrine - a Supreme Court ruling that seeks for agencies to prove “clear congressional authorization’ for the authority it claims.” The defendants made the argument that the commission had failed to “plausibly” allege securities violations and that the SEC was overstepping its regulatory reach. The unregistered securities claims by the SEC target BNB, Binance’s native token, and BAM Trading’s staking program.īinance filed a motion to dismiss back in September, but the SEC pushed back against the filing earlier this month. The lawsuit, filed back in June, also named Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, BAM Trading and BAM Management - the latter two entities run Binance US. ![]() The regulator accused Binance of not only offering unregistered securities, but also of commingling customer funds. While the companies face some of the same charges, the lawsuits are inherently different. The suits shocked the crypto world this summer after being filed back to back. Let’s start with the most obvious ones: the Securities and Exchange Commission’s cases against Binance and Coinbase. From bankruptcies to regulatory lawsuits to class action suits, there’s been a boat load of back and forth.īut, when looking at the most notable cases this year, only a few come to mind. It’s also been a year with a lot of legal action, and we mean a lot. 2023 has been a tumultuous year following the late 2022 collapse of FTX and the slew of bankruptcies that happened after the UST depeg.
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