As stated by Armstrong, “They [the SEC] came back to us, and they said… we believe every asset other than Bitcoin is a security. And they said, we’re not going to explain it to you, you need to delist every asset other than Bitcoin.”
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong claimed that before suing the exchange in June, the SEC had asked Coinbase to halt trading services for all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin (BTC).
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Armstrong noted that the SEC’s order targeted over 200 crypto tokens listed on Coinbase. According to him, instead of providing the reason behind the sudden request, the SEC asserted that “every asset other than Bitcoin is a security."
Armstrong said had Coinbase accepted the SEC’s directives, it would have created grounds for the regulator to deem other crypto exchanges as operating outside the law unless they agreed to register with the commission.
“Delisting every asset other than Bitcoin, which by the way is not what the law says, would have essentially meant the end of the crypto industry in the US. It kind of made it an easy choice… let’s go to court and find out what the court says.”
Meanwhile, the SEC denied Armstrong’s statements by citing that its enforcement division made no token delisting requests to crypto exchanges.
Written by
Ayush Pande
Ayush Pande is a hardware, gaming, and crypto writer based in India. He's a tech enthusiast who's fascinated by the potential of blockchain technology.
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