Coinbase, America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is becoming increasingly outspoken in its support for industry colleagues involved in legal conflicts with the SEC.
Ripple Labs, the firm behind the Ripple payment network, has been defending the Securities and Exchange Commission’s high-profile case for for two years (SEC).
The significant federal regulatory agency situated in the United States filed a complaint against Ripple, the blockchain startup behind XRP, on December 22, 2020.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued both former CEO Christian Larsen and current CEO Brad Garlinghouse with conducting an unregistered digital asset securities offering for $1.3 billion.
Since the SEC’s attack on the cryptocurrency company, several major figures in the crypto ecosystem have publicly backed Ripple.
Coinbase Petitioning For Ripple
Coinbase recently petitioned the judge in charge of the lawsuit from the District Court for the Southern District of New York, requesting permission to write an amicus brief defending Ripple’s legal position in the issue.
On Twitter, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal talked more about the decision to issue the petition to the New York judge:
“One of the fundamental due process protections guaranteed by our Constitution is that government agencies cannot condemn conduct as a violation of law without providing fair notice that the conduct is illegal,” Grewal said on a Twitter post. “By suing sellers of XRP tokens after making public statements signaling that those transactions were lawful, the SEC has lost sight of this bedrock principle.”
Backing Other Cryptocurrency Projects
Just this past week, America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange legally backed another project currently in a battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Grayscale, the asset manager running the world’s largest bitcoin fund, has chosen to sue the SEC for failing to approve its new spot Bitcoin ETF.
The lawsuit related to the SEC application for a new spot Bitcoin ETF fund. However, the application, like the others filed, was denied by the American Stock Exchange’s regulator, Gary Gensler.
In this instance, Coinbase also opted to publicly backing the Cryptocurrency fund legally.
In an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals, the exchange argued that spot and futures, be them tied to bitcoin or different commodities, “create the same investment exposure for investors”. Claiming that both assets have the same design, tracking the price of the underlying commodity.
