Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Says SEC’s Wells Notice a Massive Overreach on Part of Regulator

Coinbase’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal says that the Wells Notice served by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the crypto exchange is a sign that the regulator is hostile toward the industry as a whole.

Last week, the SEC sent a Wells Notice to Coinbase, which said that the regulator has made a “preliminary determination” to recommend the agency file an enforcement action against US-based crypto exchange for allegedly violating securities laws.

Coinbase said that the action takes aim at a number of listed crypto assets, as well as its staking service Coinbase Earn, its institutional platform Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Wallet.

In an interview with podcaster Laura Shin, Grewal explains why the SEC’s Wells Notice is now a fight for all of crypto.

“If responsible with serious AML [anti-money-laundering] and KYC [know-your-customer] programs, publicly listed, that are filing petitions for rulemaking and attempting to engage with the government can be treated in this fashion, nobody else is safe either. 

And I think it’s important to understand that this is not just a shot at Coinbase. This is a shot at crypto as a whole. And so, we will certainly do our part to defend against, what we think, is massive overreach on the part of the commission.

But it’s not just a fight that Coinbase has to fight alone. This is really something that all of crypto I think needs to pay very careful attention to. And we’re going to make sure that all of these issues that we’re dealing with with the SEC are explained and disclosed and described to the public as a whole to the best of our ability so that everybody can have a clear understanding of where things stand.”

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Featured Image: Shutterstock/Yurchanka Siarhei