Bloomberg: SEC Launches Coinbase Investigation

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched an investigation into Coinbase Global due to a possibleproviding access to the trading of digital assets, which can be regarded as securities, to residents of the United States. Bloomberg writes about this with reference to sources familiar with the situation.

According to them, the SEC has begun to monitor Coinbase more closely amid the exchange's expansion of the number of tokens for trading. 

In addition, on July 21, the US Department of Justice announced the arrestformer Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi. He was accused of fraud using insider trading. The defendants in the case are also Vahi's brother and Samir Ramani.

According to investigators, they used confidential information about upcoming listings of digital assets on the stock exchange to conduct profitable transactions.

The SEC filed a lawsuit against the suspects withsimilar theses and stressed that it was a securities fraud. As such, the agency classified 9 of the 25 cryptocurrencies that the defendants allegedly used in their operations.

Coinbase emphasized that securities are not traded on its platform.

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commissioner Caroline Pham believes that the SEC's designation of several tokens as securities during the investigation against Wahi couldhave major implications for the entire industry. 

In June, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse accused the SEC of using a coercive approach instead of working on clear regulation for the industry.

Member of the House of Representatives Tom Emmer said that the agency interferes with the regulation of the cryptocurrency sphere and acts unethically towards its participants.

Bloomberg previously reported that the SEC was investigating whether Binance's BNB token was a security when it was sold in 2017. However, the Commission later denied this information.

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