Coinbase has been released from its prolonged legal battle with the United States Stock Exchange and Securities Commission, since the agency agreed to abandon the case that has been among the main fights of the industry in the Federal Court.
Although the intention of the SEC to accept closing the legal dispute had already been made public when the exchange of Cryptocurrencies of the United States announced the agreement last week, the commissioners had to cast a formal vote to ask a federal judge to launch the change. The dismissal was carried out in such a way that the regulator cannot change their minds later.
“It is time for the commission to rectify its approach and develop the cryptography policy in a more transparent way,” said the interim president of the SEC, Mark Uyeda, in a statement. The SEC’s lawyers have already presented a motion to dismiss the case
To drop this main case does not release the SEC of other legal matters of Coinbase, including the company’s request to force the agency to establish cryptographic rules and the search for internal coinbase documents in the current work of the exchange to reveal the private deliberations of the regulator on how to address digital assets.
But this case application was the main legal concern for the American public company, and sought to raise the central legal issues of what makes cryptographic security and when (and how) an exchange of digital assets should be registered with the agency. These fundamental questions still expect answers that must now be provided by the United States Congress.
Once the previous leadership of the SEC left, especially the cryptographic skeptical president, Gary Gensler, the temporary president elevated by President Donald Trump, Mark Uyeda, began reviewing the legal officials of the agency and his position on digital assets. Uyeda appointed Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce to direct the agency’s Crypto Task Force, and both were vocal critics of the way Gensler approached the industry.
The digital asset sector did not have to wait for the confirmation of Paul Atkins, Trump’s choice to permanently manage the agency. Both Uyeda and Peirce served as advice when he was commissioned in the SEC, so they are expected to be in a course that will maintain. Until now, that course has seen a wave of abandoned cryptographic investigations and abandoned cases, even against Robinhood, Gemini and Metamask of Consensys, and pauses of issues that involve Tron and Binance.
The regulator no longer maintains the interpretation of the so -called Howey test of the United States Supreme Court that, he said, had indicated many cryptographic projects qualified as values.
“Goodbye,” the legal director Paul Grewal published on the social media site X after the announcement of the SEC on Thursday. “And a good ridicule.”
The changed opinion of the SEC about Coinbase, which Coindesk was the first to inform about last week, will make the exchange change its Washington approach to Congress and legislation, Grewal told Coindesk in a previous interview. The company is among the digital asset businesses that directed the creation and deployment of the Fireshake PAC in the 2004 elections, collectively dedicating more than $ 160 million to an effort to choose friendly candidates with the cryptographic for the position. Now Coinbase seeks to obtain a return from that investment with regulations that he considers favorable.
The Fireshake PAC, which shook the world of campaign finances with its levels of huge corporate spending, is still in that, venturing into special elections as it is prepared for the 2026 cycle.
Read more: SEC List of abandoning coinbase demand, marking Big Moment for us Crypto
Update (February 27, 2025, 23:08 UTC): Add comments from the Coinbase Executive Paul Grewal.
