On Monday, June 5, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slapped a lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance over the violation of securities laws. With the recent move, the SEC has extended its oversight to crypto assets worth more than $115 billion.
In its Monday filing, the securities regulator cited over a dozen coins as assets that fall under its purview. Providers of these tokens as trading support will have to follow stricter protection rules.
In its filing, the US SEC named some of the top ten altcoins including Binance’s BNB, Polygon’s MATIC, Solana’s SOL, Cardano’s ADA, Filecoin’s FIL, and Algorand’s ALGO. These when combined with other assets such as XRP put a total of $115 billion under the SEC purview.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said that most tokens are subject to securities laws for investor protection. However, this is the first time that the SEC is naming cryptocurrencies in particular, hinting at a tougher approach.
Soon after the SEC filed the lawsuit, Binance responded saying that its an attack against the entire industry. “While we take the SEC’s allegations seriously, they should not be the subject of an SEC enforcement action, let alone on an emergency basis. We intend to defend our platform vigorously,” added Binance.
Soon after the SEC lawsuit, the entire crypto market came crashing down. Bitcoin has shed some 4.5% of its price while other altcoins are down by 6-8%.
Other exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken haven’t commented on the development. However, even they are fighting their own battles with the SEC. Previously, Coinbase noted that they wouldn’t delist tokens that the SEC deems as securities until the final court decision.
The bigger question currently in the crypto space is whether the SEC is planning for all-out attacks and lawsuits similar to XRP.
