SEC Launched Formal Investigation Into Ethereum’s Security Status Over a Year Ago, New Court Filing Shows

Binance

With its latest suit against Binance, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has now labeled at least 61 cryptocurrencies as securities, affecting $100 billion worth of tokens on the market.

The total number of cryptocurrencies the United States securities regulator has accused to be a “security” has now reached an estimated 61, after adding a few more from its lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance.

The 61 cryptocurrencies accused of being a “security” comes from years of various litigation undertaken by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has outlined what cryptocurrencies it deems securities.

In its most recent case against Binance, the SEC introduced 10 cryptocurrencies into the securities classification: BNB (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Cosmos (ATOM), The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA), Axie Infinity (AXS)and COTI (COTI).

Today we charged Binance Holdings Ltd. (Binance); U.S.-based affiliate, BAM Trading Services Inc., which, together with Binance, operates https://t.co/swcxioZKVP; and their founder, Changpeng Zhao, with a variety of securities law violations.https://t.co/H1wgGgR5ir pic.twitter.com/IWTb7Et86H
— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) June 5, 2023

Other notable cryptocurrencies the SEC has deemed securities are Ripple’s XRP (XRP), LBRY’s LBRY Credits (LBC) — although not for secondary sales — and Algorand (ALGO), which it named alongside five others when it charged Bittrex in April.

The SEC’s largest one-time lumping of cryptocurrencies came when it charged Terraform Labs with fraud in February. A total of 16 crypto assets were labeled securities, including Terra Luna Classic (LUNC), Terra Classic USD (USTC), Mirror Protocol (MIR) and an estimated 13 Mirrored Assets (mAssets) that aimed to copy the price of stocks such as Apple and Tesla.

The SEC’s litigated remit of the crypto space means it now covers over $100 billion worth of the market, or around 10% of the $1.09 trillion total crypto market capitalization.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler, however, has claimed that “everything other than Bitcoin” is a security that falls under the agency’s remit. Crypto data site CoinMarketCap lists around 25,500 cryptocurrencies in existence.

SEC-deemed crypto ‘securities'

The SEC has now declared that these 48 crypto tokens are securities: XRP (XRP), Telegram’s Gram (TON), LBRY Credits (LBC), OmiseGo (OMG), DASH (DASH), Algorand (ALGO), Naga (NGC), Monolith (TKN), IHT Real Estate (IHT), Power Ledger (POWR), Kromatica (KROM), DFX Finance (DFX), Amp (AMP), Rally (RLY), Rari Governance Token (RGT), DerivaDAO (DDX), XYO Network (XYO), Liechtenstein Cryptoasset Exchange (LCX), Kin (KIN) Salt Lending (SALT), Beaxy Token (BXY), DragonChain (DRGN), Tron (TRX), BitTorrent (BTT), Terra USD (UST), Luna (LUNA), Mirror Protocol (MIR), Mango (MNGO), Ducat (DUCAT), Locke (LOCKE), EthereumMax (EMAX), Hydro (HYDRO), BitConnect (BCC), Meta 1 Coin (META1), Filecoin (FIL), BNB (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Cosmos (ATOM), The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA), Axie Infinity (AXS), COTI (COTI), Paragon (PRG) and AirToken (AIR).

In addition, the SEC has deemed that these 13 Mirror Protocol mAssets are securities: Mirrored Apple Inc. (mAAPL), Mirrored Amazon.com, Inc. (mAMZN), Mirrored Alibaba Group Holding Limited (mBABA), Mirrored Alphabet Inc. (mGOOGL), Mirrored Microsoft Corporation (mMSFT), Mirrored Netflix, Inc. (mNFLX), Mirrored Tesla, Inc. (mTSLA), Mirrored Twitter Inc. (mTWTR), Mirrored iShares Gold Trust (mIAU), Mirrored Invesco QQQ Trust (mQQQ), Mirrored iShares Silver Trust (mSLV), Mirrored United States Oil Fund, LP (mUSO), Mirrored ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (mVIXY).

Magazine: Crypto regulation — Does SEC Chair Gary Gensler have the final say?

security classification