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Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

reuters.com

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Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#121

Post by panphora »

8note wrote: post #106
Taek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire crypto industry has spent billions of dollars on compliance and the effective opinion of all the lawyers is "there's not enough guidance, anything you do that touches a token carries potential liability, and the SEC is refusing to lay down any sort of rules for what a compliant token looks like" Coinbase has plenty of lawyers and legal budget and would happily do an analysis if sufficient guidance actually…

Isnt it obvious? A compliant token is a security. Trying to play games to make them not securities is where crypto's lawyers are going wrong Crypto is looking for a hack that can make their stuff not securities, and the SEC isn't playing along

Exactly.

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#122

Post by peyton »

8note wrote: post #106
Taek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire crypto industry has spent billions of dollars on compliance and the effective opinion of all the lawyers is "there's not enough guidance, anything you do that touches a token carries potential liability, and the SEC is refusing to lay down any sort of rules for what a compliant token looks like" Coinbase has plenty of lawyers and legal budget and would happily do an analysis if sufficient guidance actually…

Isnt it obvious? A compliant token is a security. Trying to play games to make them not securities is where crypto's lawyers are going wrong Crypto is looking for a hack that can make their stuff not securities, and the SEC isn't playing along

What’s a compliant token? How can I register my token with the SEC?

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#123

Post by EFreethought »

Alex3917 wrote: post #39
yokem55 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is something of a he said/she said between Coinbase and the SEC. But the Judge in the Voyager bankruptcy case had similar concerns about the clarity provided by the SEC - https://twitter.com/BillHughesDC/status/1636069735006699523

> Well, it is something of a he said/she said between Coinbase and the SEC. Not really. The law has been exactly the same since the 1940s. Apparently though Coinbase has decided to go all in on SBF's strategy of pretending to be too dumb to understand the law. Coinbase arguing that they should be allowed to sell illegal unregistered securities because the SEC said they could sell securities is like CVS arguing that s…

I thought SBF's strategy was that everybody other than him is too dumb to understand the law.

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#124

Post by humanizersequel »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #74
arcticbull wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression it was due to the initial distribution mechanism. It was all open mine, no presale. Basically everything else has had a presale or premine. I could be wrong, because if that were the justification forks should qualify too by virtue of inheriting the chain history.

In the Ethereum pre-sale they explicitly state it is not intended to be a security or investment offering: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/07/22/launching-the-ether-sal... Staking and maybe EIP-1559 could change things? It's sad since it seems like Coinbase is now directly collaborating with Ethereum developers https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-3651 > The COINBASE address shall be warm at the start of transaction exe…

>Looks like Coinbase currently makes up 10% of Eth staking. Would this give special privileges to Coinbase over other exchanges?

No.

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#125

Post by TylerE »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #114
TylerE wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or coin base could actually hire and listen to them like a business trying to operate legitimately and honestly. Instead it’s the usual crypto playbook of “move fast and break things” and then play dumb.

They have been trying for years, the SEC does not want to engage in good faith discussion. They wrote a response about it here: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/we-asked-the-sec-for-reasonabl...

Coinbase isn’t exactly operating in good faith either with this “oh we couldn’t possibly know what they’re talking about” BS.

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#126

Post by 3np »

miohtama wrote: post #2

Here are comments from the Coinbase CEO https://mobile.twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1638654192... Here are comments from the Coinbase legal https://mobile.twitter.com/iampaulgrewal/status/163866003232... Here is some commentary on Bloomberg https://archive.ph/tXiOm Here are some earlier comments from Mr Gensler: “Come in and talk to us” https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-chair-doubles-down-tells-...

Relevant Coinbase blog post (2022): https://www.coinbase.com//blog/coinbase-does-not-list-securi...

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#127

Post by tiedieconderoga »

rtpg wrote: post #92
nonethewiser wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the SEC won’t identify the alleged security then I think it’s different than what you’d characterize. The SEC should have a more collaborative spirit and share so that Coinbase can follow regulations or make their case. If the SEC is actually withholding this information they are acting in bad faith and operating more like a mob shaking someone down.

If I had to guess, the SEC is actually saying "you are offering many products, and _way too many of them_ are securities. We will not list them all because it would be way too much work. We will not list one because we don't want you to overfit on the example. We want you to actually do the analysis across all of your products". I have to imagine the SEC and Coinbase are in fact talking directly on a more off the rec…

>I think the equivalent here is the IRS saying "look, these numbers look wrong to us. Please check them. We are not in the job of doing taxes for you".

The IRS doesn't usually do that, though.

If they suspect something might be fishy, they'll audit you and make you justify your reported return.

If they can see that you're a terrible accountant, there's a good chance they'll just send a correction, usually in the form of an estimated bill, but sometimes in the form of an unexpected check.

The dirty secret of American taxes is that unless you move a lot of money under the table, the IRS does already know how much you owe. But there are jobs that need protecting in the tax prep sector.

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#128

Post by codehalo »

davorak wrote: post #117
codehalo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ethereum meets that bar. Some argue otherwise. That will need to be determined in the courts or congress, not by a regulatory bully.

> That will need to be determined in the courts or congress, not by a regulatory bully. The SEC was set up by congress, the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and several others [1]. The Howey test was made by the courts and at least finalized by the supreme court [2]. [1] https://www.sec.gov/about/about-securities-laws [2] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/328/293.html

I dont see how posting trivia about the SEC's origin take away from it now being moat protecting, outdated entity. It needs to get back to what it was designed for - 20th century regulation, they are clearly showing their uselessness in the 21st.

Re: Coinbase issued Wells notice by SEC

#129

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

iambateman wrote: post #115

Some here have said it’s the SEC who should have a more collaborative spirit. But all of their incentives, job descriptions, and reason to exist are to _enforce laws_ not be chummy with startup executives. The “mean” approach to securities enforcement is what we as a society need…there are far too many scams and people who run them, and those scams seem especially concentrated within the crypto world. After the blitz…

In the blog past Coinbase General Counsel asks for "guidance". The guidance for future "crypto entrepreneurs" is going to come from the outcomes of these enforcement actions.

CryptoExpert: "We want guidance. We want regulation."

SEC: "Your product/service is a security."

CryptoExpert: "No it's not!"

Damodoran called cryptocurrency "currency made by the paranoid for the paranoid." [paraphrase] Let's be honest, cooperating with the government is not high on the crypto nerd's list of priorities. The "cryptocurrency" concept seems to be based on a mistrust of government-issued currency and a mistrust of government more generally.

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