The post SEC Poised to Drop Coinbase Lawsuit, Marking Big Moment for U.S. Crypto appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will vote soon on a deal negotiated with Coinbase to entirely drop the agency’s legal pursuit of the crypto exchange, according to the company’s top lawyer. While the SEC has been making moves almost daily to reverse past positions on digital assets, the pending vote would mark a watershed moment that could start a series of legal dominoes to free other crypto businesses from enforcement actions. Because the deal between Coinbase and SEC staff assumes a dismissal of the case “with prejudice,” said Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, the regulator’s accusations of securities violations would be shut down permanently. “It’s a great day for Coinbase, yes, but it’s also a great day for crypto in America,” Grewal said in an interview with CoinDesk. “We have every expectation, based on representations that have been made to us, that that approval will come, and with that, the dismissal will then be filed.” He restated it in simpler terms: “We win; they lose.” When the SEC first went after Coinbase — the most prominent of the U.S.-based crypto platforms — it represented a shot across the bow of the industry. The SEC alleged Coinbase violated federal law by not registering as a clearing house, broker or trading venue, based on the agency’s view of the so-called Howey test that determines whether an asset is a security. The company chose to fight the accusations in federal court, and that legal clash had been fierce, most recently seeing a judge side with Coinbase’s effort to elevate an appeal of the central question at dispute: Are these tokens being traded really securities under the SEC’s jurisdiction? The industry had long expected it might have to wait for the courts — eventually even the U.S. Supreme Court — to rule…

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Filed under: News - @ February 21, 2025 1:28 pm