Several tokens and their designation spark investigation
The SEC is currently investigating Coinbase. According to a Bloomberg report, the company is under scrutiny for allowing the trade of several tokens and not designating them as securities. The company is under a probe that wants to determine if the company allowed American citizens to trade in digital assets that should have been marked as securities.
The SEC has been critical of Coinbase for a while now, especially after the company increased the number of its token offerings. This probe actually started way before the investigation into an insider trading scheme that recently led to an arrest and lawsuit against a former Coinbase manager.
Coinbase has been cooperative with the SEC and claims that their offerings are compliant within the rules set by the governmental agency. The debate of whether crypto should be classified as securities or not has been going on for a few years now, and the SEC has currently named nine crypto tokens as securities, all of which were available on Coinbase. Those tokens are AMP, RLY, DDX, XYO, RGT, LCX, POWR, DFX, and KROM.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has been a strong proponent of regulations against crypto and has stated that cryptocurrencies are definitely unregistered securities. Gensler has faced pushback for his statements from the industry and from the CFTC. The CFTC has called for more cooperation in regulating crypto among all agencies.
