Coinbase Moves to Dismiss SEC Lawsuit, Claiming Crypto Is Out of Regulator's Oversight

Coinbase has filed for judgment in its ongoing case against the SEC alleging the regulator is stepping outside its jurisdiction with the lawsuit. Joining us now to discuss is Coindesk global policy and regulation. Managing editor Nick Day, who is also the editor of the one newsletter. You will tell your grandkids about that's coin deest state of crypto. Welcome Nick Happy Friday. Happy Friday. So, uh ok, so what's going base argument here? Yeah. So Coinbase filed uh basically a motion to dismiss today against its lawsuit from the SEC which as you may recall, sued Coin Base in June. Uh The argument basically boil down to this one coin base is reiterating its previous viewpoint that the SEC uh you know, has said it doesn't really have jurisdiction over crypto. And so I, you know, this lawsuit is an overreach of the sec jurisdiction of its disabilities and authorities and so the suit should be dismissed on those grounds. Coinbase also says that the SEC hasn't really adequately uh argued that the various products it claims are securities are in fact securities uh pointing to things like questions of, you know, how you define an investment contract and whether or not that term applies to coin based listing assets. But the exchange also, uh, seems to disagree with the idea that some of the assets that the SCC argued our securities are indeed securities. Uh going back again to the investment contract question coin says that, you know, these assets are, you know, basically commodities that they're, uh, you know, tokens that someone can buy, someone can sell. But the, you know, disputing the idea that people are buying these tokens uh in the hopes of getting a return out of them. So, uh they, they also pointed out, pointed to the ripple ruling. Um How are they, how are they trying to connect the two cases here? Yeah. So, um you know, the basic idea there is, you know, the judge uh judge of the US District Court for the southern district of New York ruled uh last month. Now that Ripple's programmatic sales of XRP did not violate securities laws because uh they were blind bid, ask sales people who were buying them from exchanges, buying XRP from exchanges, uh couldn't have known whether they were buying directly from ripple or not. And so it's difficult to argue in the judge's words that they were purchasing XRP with a view for, you know, creating a contract with ripple. So coin base obviously is one of the intermediary exchanges that, you know, sold XRP. They're saying that the facts about the tokens themselves are functionally the same and so the ripple president should hold for coin base's own, uh, you know, listing of crypto assets, uh, that it then sells to people. Uh, Nick, uh, in your state of crypto newsletter that, uh, all grandchildren should watch, as we've said, um, you did mention you, you, you had a headline that said will SPF Samba free go to jail. Uh, and then something else has happened last night, uh, which has got to do with the Doj and the SSP F's attorneys, you know, going back and forth once again. And the Do J's point is that, well, SPF is not even denying that he leaked the documents to the New York Times, his sometimes girlfriend documents and so he should be detained until the trial. Uh Is that, is that what really happened? And if so what was the reaction? Like, what are we hearing from the other side? What, what, what happened in the court? What? Yeah, so I think we're waiting now, my guess is we're gonna wait for a hearing to happen for the judge to schedule a hearing on these arguments. The Do J's point is, you know, Sam Reed has released these documents. He has, uh you know, repeatedly tried to in their words, influence and tamper with witnesses and otherwise violate the terms of his bond release. The defense says that, you know, these events are innocuous, these actions are, you know, being painted in a negative light. And so they're waiting for uh or rather arguing that he should just be, you know, allowed to continue without being detained pending trial. Thanks Nick, thanks so much for that. That was coin de global policy and regulation. Managing editor Nick Day. And as we said earlier, don't forget to sign up for the state crypto newsletter on coin dot com.