Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman, Gary Gensler has received considerable criticism from republicans as well as the crypto community for his Tuesday’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. While testifying, Gensler claimed that most digital assets that are allowed to trade on crypto exchange platforms are required to register with the SEC.
Gensler argued against the cryptocurrency market’s promises for financially emancipating and strengthening small investors’ portfolios. “It’s a highly speculative asset class,”, said Gensler, adding that the need for regulatory action is inevitable.
Garlinghouse tweets against Gensler
Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse took to Twitter to highlight Gensler’s argument stating that the current securities laws are comprehensible and tangible for the crypto community. Garlinghouse further added Gensler’s contradicting position where he suggested that Congress further “needs to write laws to clarify”.
Chair Gensler insisted (again) in today's testimony that the securities laws are clear and easily understandable for the crypto market…and then turned around and said Congress needs to write laws to clarify. So which one is it?
Thank you @SenToomey for being a voice of reason. https://t.co/Ryr8yCf0IP
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) September 14, 2021
Gensler brings up Coinbase
Gary Gensler also brought up COINBASE in the testimony, noting that the exchange has failed to register with the Wall Street regulator as of now. He further speculated that Coinbase was unable to register “even though they have dozens of tokens that may be securities.”
Coinbase is reportedly on the verge of a potential lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for their unreleased lending product. The exchange platform recently disclosed that the SEC has warned to take Coinbase to court as they consider the mentioned unreleased lending product as security.
In response to SEC’s threats, Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong took to Twitter, commenting in a thread of tweets against the commission’s unfair and unclear process of deeming any entity or service, as security.
1/ Some really sketchy behavior coming out of the SEC recently.
Story time…
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 8, 2021
Potential Ripple-Coinbase Alliance
Coinbase fears to be the next Ripple. However, the XRP community has suggested the exchange to Relist XRP on Coinbase if the exchange platform does not wish to fight an isolated battle against the corrupt SEC. So far, regardless of market sentiment, Coinbase has not made any official announcement on the relisting. Nevertheless, Coinbase’s history of consistent glitches, offering XRP on their website could point at a potential alliance in the foreseeable future.