The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has intensified its regulatory actions against cryptocurrencies, as it included 10 additional tokens in its charges against Binance on Monday.
According to court documents, the SEC identified SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, ATOM, SAND, MANA, ALGO, AXS, and COTI as securities, referring to them as “crypto asset securities” in its complaint.
The SEC alleges that Binance unlawfully solicited U.S. investors to engage in trading these tokens through unregistered platforms.
The SEC’s court filing against Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) encompasses a wide range of crypto securities law violations.
The complaint accuses the defendants of soliciting U.S. investors and facilitating the trading of crypto asset securities without proper registration. Notably, the SEC has not yet brought civil suits or charges against the issuers of these tokens.
Mike Selig, a counsel in the Asset Management Department and a member of the Willkie Digital Works practice, noted the comprehensive nature of the SEC’s complaint in a tweet.
He emphasized the regulator’s direct language, citing the defendants’ “blatant disregard” for the law and their enrichment at the expense of investors’ assets.
The news of the Binance suit had an immediate effect on several tokens mentioned in the SEC complaint. SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain, experienced an 8% drop, while ADA (Cardano) and MATIC (Polygon) both declined by nearly 6%.
In its allegations against Binance, the SEC also accused the world’s largest crypto exchange of misappropriating user funds, drawing parallels to similar charges previously brought against FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
The SEC claimed that Binance’s native token, BNB, and its stablecoin, BUSD, are securities. Additionally, a Binance-related staking affiliate was accused of offering unregistered securities.
It is worth noting that the SEC’s inclusion of additional tokens in a lawsuit against an exchange follows a similar pattern observed in a 2022 lawsuit against a former Coinbase employee over insider trading.
