Of the nine digital assets the SEC insider trading complaint said were securities, seven are traded on Coinbase. [Coinbase Chief Legal Officer] Paul Grewal said the company has “a rigorous process to analyze and review each digital asset before making it available on our exchange — a process that the SEC itself has reviewed.”
Coinbase may have overreached in suggesting it had the SEC’s approval. Grewal was making a reference to the SEC review of Coinbase’s IPO filing last year, according to a company representative. The SEC declined to comment.
It’s far from clear that the issues the SEC would consider in vetting a company’s financial reporting ahead of an initial public offering have much to do with the question of whether digital assets are securities, even if the same agency happens to have oversight in both cases.
John Reed Stark, former chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, said Grewal’s statement was misleading. “What they’re saying implies some sort of approval,” he told Protocol.
Source: SEC’s Coinbase investigations a sign of more fights to come – Protocol
