Regulatory Estoppel Does Not Apply to SEC v. Coinbase – John Reed Stark

But let’s be clear: The SEC’s role when “approving” Coinbase’s registration statement was merely to ensure that Coinbase made the proper disclosures in their application.

To suggest that the SEC somehow endorsed or approved the various business lines of Coinbase (so Coinbase now has some sort of regulatory safe harbor for everything they do and the SEC is limited by some sort of doctrine of “regulatory estoppel” barring them from charging Coinbase) has no basis in law or in fact.

Merely because two years ago the SEC reviewed Coinbase’s registration statement (which Coinbase often refers to as its “business plan”) and approved Coinbase to go public is irrelevant. The same goes for any public company that has ever filed any registration statement with the SEC.

Source: John Reed Stark on Twitter