SEC sues Coinbase in NY federal court for offering unregistered securities

The SEC lawsuit alleges that Coinbase operated as an unregistered broker and several tokens offered on its platform qualify as security.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against New York-based crypto exchange Coinbase for offering unregistered securities.

The SEC lawsuit alleged that Coinbase has never registered as a broker, national securities exchange or clearing agency, evading the disclosure scheme for securities markets. SEC alleged that several tokens offered by the crypto exchange including  Solana (SOL),  Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC) Filecoin (FIL), SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, and NEXO qualify as securities.

SEC further alleged that coinbase’s staking program includes five stackable crypto assets, making the staking program an investment contract and therefore a security. Coinbase was already fighting the staking battle with the SEC and had claimed its staking products do not qualify as a security.

The SEC lawsuit against Coinbase comes just a day after the securities regulator sued Binance for violating securities law and comingling customer’s funds.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.