Before filing the lawsuit last month, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had asked Coinbase to delist all other coins except bitcoin, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong claimed in an interview with Financial Times, published today.
The SEC sued Coinbase, which offers trading in over 200 coins, early last month for offering 12 coins that SEC termed unregistered securities. The lawsuit came a day after the regulator sued Binance for a series of violations. Both Binance and Coinbase were charged with offering trading services in unregistered securities, working as a exchange, broker-dealer, and clearing house without proper license to operate these services.
“They came back to us, and they said . . . we believe every asset other than bitcoin is a security,” the Coinbase CEO told the Financial Times. “And, we said, well how are you coming to that conclusion, because that’s not our interpretation of the law. And they said, we’re not going to explain it to you, you need to delist every asset other than bitcoin,” he added.
Following the SEC lawsuit, Coinbase filed a motion to dismiss it, saying that SEC’s claims “go far beyond existing law.” But the SEC in court filings earlier this month claimed that Coinbase knew that its operations were in violation of securities laws, media reports said.
