DCG CEO points out the absence of PoW tokens in SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase

Among such coins, Barry Silbert singled out BTC, LTC, XMR, ETC, and ZEC

07.06.2023 - 08:20

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What’s new? As part of the lawsuits against the Coinbase and Binance platforms, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) declared some tokens as securities. The head of cryptocurrency conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG) Barry Silbert commented on the situation on Twitter, noting that none of the lawsuits include digital assets on blockchains with a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm such as bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Monero (XMR), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Zcash (ZEC).

no Proof of Work tokens in any of the lawsuits, I believe (BTC, LTC, XMR, ETC, ZEC, etc.) — Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) June 6, 2023

What is known about the lawsuits? The SEC filed lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase on June 5 and 6, respectively. In addition to allegations of operating without registration, the regulator categorized the following tokens on blockchains with a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm traded on the platforms as unregistered securities: SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, NEXO, ATOM, MANA, ALGO, AXS, and COTI.

Earlier SEC Chair Gary Gensler said that all PoS tokens may fall under the jurisdiction of his agency. This was his response to the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Rostin Behnam’s statement that Ethereum altcoin is a commodity. The CFTC also filed a lawsuit against Binance in March for illegal operations in the States, where it referred not only ETH but also BTC and LTC as commodities.

Gensler also commented on the lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, saying that the exchanges combined several functions at once. He explained that in traditional finance, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in parallel with its main activity, could not also manage a hedge fund that creates markets.

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