Following Binance, the US authorities have filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against New York-based crypto exchange Coinbase for offering unregistered securities. This comes a day after the SEC filed a lawsuit against Binance and Чанпен Чжао" href="https://noworries.media/biography/chanpen-chzhao/" data-bio-id="3681">Changpeng Zhao.

The SEC’s statement alleges that Coinbase has never registered as a broker, national securities exchange, or clearing agency, evading the disclosure scheme for securities markets. SEC officials claim that the tokens presented on the exchange, including: Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Filecoin (FIL), SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, and NEXO, qualify as securities.

The SEC also stated that Coinbase’s staking program includes 5 digital assets that can be accumulated, which, according to regulators, makes the staking program an investment contract and therefore a security. Coinbase has already fought with the SEC over staking and argued that its staking products are not securities.

Members of the cryptocurrency community are outraged by the situation and point out inconsistencies in the SEC’s words. One user posted a tweet:«SEC says Coinbase has been operating as an unregistered broker since at least 2019. Meanwhile, the date of Coinbase’s initial public offering: april 14, 2021. What’s going on?»

Regarding the situation around Binance, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, headed by Chairman Gary Gensler, has filed 13 charges against the exchange and Changpeng Zhao. The lawsuit claims that Binance blatantly disregarded US securities laws, enriching itself by billions of dollars.

The SEC said that Binance representatives illegally attracted investors, participated in unregistered investment schemes and «defrauded equity, retail and institutional investors by controlling manipulative trading on the Binance. US PLATFORM».

Binance’s management is convinced that the SEC «chose to use brute force instead of the thoughtful approach necessary to manage a dynamic and complex technology.» The SEC called the BUSD stablecoin and the BNB token securities that «should have been legally registered with the agency».