Coinbase has refused a report that its CEO, Brian Armstrong, stated that US securities regulators requested the platform to delist all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin. The Financial Times reported on July 31 that Armstrong claimed the SEC wanted Coinbase to remove nearly 250 tok ens from its platform before filing a lawsuit against the exchange. According to the report, Armstrong stated that the SEC considers all assets except Bitcoin to be securities, and when he sought clarification from SEC staff, they allegedly responded, "We're not going to explain that to you ; we will explain this to you. You need to delist all assets except Bitcoin." However, a Coinbase spokesperson clarified that the FT report lacks context and is inaccurate.
The spokesperson stated that the SEC has not explicitly asked Coinbase to delist any specific assets. Requests for delisting can only be made after a majority vote of the SEC commissioners. The spokesperson also mentioned that the views attributed to some SEC staff in the FT article do not represent the wider committee's stance. The SEC's enforcement arm does not formally require companies to delist cryptocurrencies, but its staff may share views on potential violations of securities laws. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler previously indicated that, in the agecy's view, "everything but bitcoin " is a security.
In early June, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, accusing the exchange of operating as an unregistered exchange and naming 13 cryptocurrencies offered on the platform as unregistered securities. Recently, the SEC filed a similar complaint against Binance . The regulation of the cryptocurrency industry in the US has not yet been fully consolidated under one regulator, with both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC taking regulatory actions against players in the crypto industry.
On July 27, the House Agriculture Committee passed legislation that primarily assigns cryptocurrency jurisdiction to the CFTC and clarifies the SEC's role concerning cryptocurrencies, following passage by the House Financial Services Committee. amline regulatory oversight in the crypto space.
