SEC's Coinbase Move Signals Regulatory Vacuum for Crypto

Welcome to the official beginning of the cryptocurrency regulatory vacuum. This is our current situation, as the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., Coinbase, has stated that it has reached an agreement with staff from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to dismiss the lawsuit accusing the company of operating an illegal securities exchange (at least that's what Coinbase claims— we will have to wait for confirmation from the SEC after a committee vote).

Original title: SEC's Coinbase move signals regulatory vacuum for crypto

Original author: Yueqi Yang, The Information

Original compilation: Block unicorn

Welcome to the official beginning of the cryptocurrency regulatory vacuum. That's where we are now, as the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, says it has reached an agreement with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff to dismiss a lawsuit that accused the company of operating an unregistered securities exchange (at least, that's what Coinbase is saying—we'll have to wait for the SEC to confirm after a committee vote).

Coinbase shares rose 2.2% in morning U.S. trading on Friday. The news marks a major development in the crypto industry's push for regulation, especially after the SEC decided to drop its long-running lawsuit against Coinbase, suggesting that the crypto industry has entered a regulatory vacuum. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in an X post that the dismissal means Coinbase will not pay any fines or make any changes to its business, adding that the company has spent about $50 million on the lawsuit.

It appears that top financial regulators are hitting pause on enforcing decades-old securities rules for crypto as they wait for Congress to set new ones—if Congress can agree on anything at all. Those congressional efforts are likely to take some time. In the meantime, crypto companies have been promised a break from regulators while Trump's crypto task force figures out the next steps for the industry.

But if that all sounds optimistic for the crypto industry, there's a risk warning baked into the news: Just two hours after Coinbase's good news, Bybit, the world's third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, confirmed it was hit by a hack of more than $1 billion, marking it as the largest cryptocurrency hacking incident in history.

When hacks like this happen, worried investors can withdraw their funds en masse, which could spell doom for exchanges if they don't have the funds to meet the withdrawal requests. For now, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said the exchange has enough funds to cover the hacked amount and is still processing withdrawals as normal. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum prices fell, however, and Coinbase shares—which rose in morning trading on news of the SEC action—fell 8% in afternoon trading.

It could take days or weeks for the situation to become clear, and any knock-on effects will only become apparent over time. The hack not only highlights the inherent risks of crypto but also shows how traditional financial institutions are shielded from crypto risks by the current regulatory protections. That's some comfort for banks and traditional securities exchanges, which are still heavily overseen by the SEC and federal banking regulators.

Those companies have been arguing that the crypto industry currently has an unfair regulatory advantage. For example, Nasdaq, in a meeting with the task force earlier this month, reportedly asked the SEC to set a clear timeline for this "hands-off" status for cryptocurrency exchanges. The exchange giant has previously said it wants to launch crypto services. Banks also want to be able to offer crypto services to institutional traders and investors, perhaps to avoid losing crypto-interested clients to exchanges and trading firms. But they still need banking regulators' approval to do that.

This week, a powerful coalition of banking lobbyists asked the Trump administration to find ways to make sure they don't lose out on the action. The episode highlights not only the vulnerability of the crypto industry but also the advantages of traditional financial institutions when it comes to regulation and protection. And as the crypto market continues to evolve and the regulatory landscape slowly takes shape, it's a question to watch how they balance innovation and risk in the future.