GuShiio.com The US SEC redressed “unjust, false and wrongful cases”, and encryption ushered in the dawn of supervision.
Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily
Although the crypto market has shown signs of decline recently, with Bitcoin falling by more than 10% in the past seven days and its market value once falling out of the top ten global assets, there is a trend of improvement in crypto supervision.
Long before Trump officially took office, crypto advocacy groups such as the Digital Chamber of Commerce listed the key event for the “first day” of the new SEC as launching a review of all existing crypto-related investigations, Wells notices and ongoing litigation cases, and seeking to suspend cases that did not involve actual fraud or investor harm.
On January 20, 2025, Gary Gensler, who has been in charge of the U.S. SEC for four years, officially stepped down. Mark Uyeda has served as acting chairman of the U.S. SEC. In just one month, the new U.S. SEC has fulfilled its promise and changed Gary Gensler’s tough regulatory attitude towards encryption companies during his tenure. First, a number of encryption litigation cases were resolved and cancelled. The Odaily Planet Daily organized it into the following picture:
Encryption companies: Years of persistence and finally welcome the dawn
Before being settled and withdrawn, many crypto companies had a multi-year “war” with the US SEC.
Coinbase’s dispute with the US SEC dates back to 2021. In September 2021, the U.S. SEC issued a Wells Notice against Coinbase Lend, Coinbase’s loan business (an informal reminder issued by the U.S. SEC before filing a civil lawsuit against U.S. listed companies that received the notice can communicate and negotiate with the SEC before receiving a formal lawsuit). At that time, Coinbase did not choose to confront the U.S. SEC, but announced that it would cancel its upcoming crypto lending project plan.
However, in March 2023, the U.S. SEC issued another Wells notice to Coinbase, warning that the company had discovered possible violations of U.S. securities laws, focusing on pledge services and asset listings. Faced with the lawsuit, Coinbase did not choose to back down. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said at the time,”Coinbase has to prepare for a multi-year court battle with the U.S. SEC, and even if the situation worsens, it will consider making more overseas investments, including moving from the United States to other places.”
Coinbase also has the same tough attitude as Uniswap and OpenSea.
In April 2024, Uniswap received a Wells notice from the US SEC and made it clear that it would “fight back” to the end: “We must fight against US government agencies to protect our company and industry. This battle will last for years, possibly all the way to the Supreme Court, and the future of fintech and our industry is at stake.”
In August of the same year, OpenSea also received a notice from the US SEC against Wells, accusing it of operating as a trading platform for unregistered securities and wanting to classify NFT as securities. OpenSea also chose to stand up and fight for the industry, and to help ensure creators continued to create without fear, OpenSea provided $5 million to pay legal fees to NFT artists and developers who also received Wells ‘notice.
In fact, fighting litigation against the US SEC is not an easy task. As Uniswap co-founder Hayden Adams said in response to the US SEC’s abandonment of its investigation into Uniswap on February 26,”The SEC’s previous investigation lasted three years, wasted a lot of time and millions of dollars, and had a significant impact on the company.”
These human, material and financial pressures that have to be borne in litigation are not something that ordinary companies can bear. Some encryption companies have not survived until today’s good era of redemption.
For example, stablecoin issuer Paxos. In February 2023, Paxos, which jointly issued stablecoin BUSD with Binance, received a notice from Wells from the U.S. SEC alleging that BUSD is an unregistered securities. On the same day, Paxos was pressured by the New York State Department of Financial Services to stop issuing BUSD. Although Paxos also argued that BUSD was not a “securities” and would sue the SEC, it ultimately failed to resist the pressure. Binance also announced the gradual removal of BUSD in November 2023. Dramatically, in July 2024, the SEC abandoned its investigation into Paxos and determined that BUSD was not a securities.
The spring of encryption regulation has arrived
The two most important commitments that Trump needs to fulfill in the crypto market are to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve and reverse the U.S. SEC’s regulatory attitude towards crypto. Although the approval progress of the Bitcoin strategic reserve in various states is not optimistic, the U.S. SEC’s attitude towards crypto has improved visibly.
The U.S. SEC’s abandonment of litigation has already had a demonstration effect. Following the withdrawal of Coinbase and Robinhood lawsuits, exchanges such as Binance and Kraken may see a turning point, because the litigation against these platforms is based on the same regulatory logic as the Coinbase case. At the same time, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett revealed that given the US SEC’s recent attention to the pledge business, the agency may revisit the lawsuit filed last year against Consensus Sys over its MetaMask pledge service.
The U.S. SEC’s batch withdrawal of litigation will also benefit tokens that were once regarded as securities, including BNB, SOL, ADA, etc., and is even expected to start a new round of “policy cattle.” The spring of encryption regulation has arrived, and the encryption industry is one step closer to gaining traditional world recognition.
