SEC Targets AXS, FIL, and ATOM in Expanded Binance Lawsuit, Labels Them Securities

• SEC has expanded its lawsuit against Binance to include Filecoin, Cosmos, Decentraland, and The Sandbox, which it alleges are securities.
• In the revised lawsuit, the agency also apologized for using the term “crypto asset securities” in its previous filing as it had caused confusion.

The SEC has dug its heels in on its charges against Binance, and in its latest filing, has added to the list of digital assets it alleges violate securities laws.

As we reported in July, the SEC revealed it intended to revise its charges against Binance to reflect changes in how it regards some crypto tokens and the scope of its charges against the world’s largest exchange.

The amended complaint was filed this past week, and it alleges “blatant disregard of the federal securities laws and the investor and market protections these laws provide” by Binance. The agency alleges that Binance, under its former CEO Changpeng Zhao, offered users securities without the required license, including its own BNB and BUSD tokens. All this is consistent with its previous lawsuit.

However, the new lawsuit has amendments. For one, it bundles in new crypto tokens as securities that were not previously included. These include Axie Infinity’s Shards, The Sandbox’s SAND, Cosmos’ ATOM, Filecoin’s FIL and Decentraland’s MANA.

Under Filecoin, for instance, the regulator says that its developer, Protocol Labs, violated securities, stating:

The information Protocol Labs publicly disseminated has led FIL holders, including those who have purchased FIL on the Binance Platforms, to view FIL as an investment in, and reasonably to expect to profit from, Protocol Lab’s efforts to grow its protocol, which, in turn, would increase the demand for and the value of FIL.

Other documents, including the whitepaper and certain blog posts by Protocol Labs, were also cited as evidence that the team regarded it a security. This includes a statement on the ICO where the Labs states, “Filecoin success will reward the investment of supporters like you by simultaneously driving down the cost of storage and increasing the value of the Filecoin tokens that incentivize miners to provide storage.”

SEC Removes “Crypto Asset Securities” From Lawsuit

In a more curious move, the agency acknowledged that the use of the term “crypto asset securities” had caused confusion. It says that the “securities” part doesn’t refer to the crypto being considered a security; rather, it’s a shorthand.

Nevertheless, to avoid any confusion, the PAC no longer uses the shorthand term, and the SEC regrets any confusion it may have invited in this regard.

But the show of regret isn’t fooling the crypto faithful. Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, an avid critic of the SEC and its brute-force approach, took to X to blast the agency. He alleged that the amendments were made to ensure Ethereum doesn’t get caught in the crossfire, stating:

And I’ll say it again: somehow ETH transactions HAVE changed in a meaningful way that the Ten Crypto Assets have not so as to avoid the agency’s clutches. How? That’s apparently for the SEC to know, and the rest of us to find out only if and when we are sued.

It’s plainly false that @SECGov has “consistently maintained” anything other than that tokens by themselves are securities. For instance, on the left is @SECGov telling Judge Failla to look to the 2017 DAO report for an “explicit” articulation of its application of Howey to… https://t.co/gvg0ZtSxxu pic.twitter.com/82mxES9Nqw

— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) September 15, 2024