[latchkey]

> Why would Coinbase think that it could run a securities brokerage, exchange, and clearing house without registering with the SEC?

Coinbase is a public company on NASDAQ. They are about as registered with the SEC, as possible.

Update: cause I'm getting downvotes. See below. The point that I'm making is that if this company is acting illegally, then why is it still trading?

[twic]

The registration under discussion here is registration as a broker-dealer, or an exchange, or whatever, not as a listed company.

[latchkey]

Tom Anderson, of myspace? Wow. Hi!

Let me direct you to this:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coinbase-says-just-no-way-to-...

The whole point here is that Coinbase is acting in good faith by trying to do things "the right way"... including becoming a public company and trying to register in whatever compliance ways they can. All the way to announcing that they will go to court over all of this. All because their existing efforts haven't worked.

Update: the discussion is happening right now around how coinbase is a public company that is being declared that it is doing illegal things. If so, then why is it still trading?

https://www.youtube.com/live/DSsp8Rvh5n0?feature=share

-4:15

[Volundr]

> If so, then why is it still trading?

Because breaking the law does not cause your stock to be delisted?

I'm not informed enough of the SEC complaint to have much of an opinion on how valid the SEC's or Coinbase's respective cases are, but "I can still by stock" is no evidence that Coinbase isn't breaking the law or violating regulations. Companies do illegal things all the time, delisting the stock and shuttering the company is a resolution of last resort, not first resort.

[twic]

> Tom Anderson, of myspace? Wow. Hi!

No, i'm the one from Beavis and Butt-Head.

[ahahahahah]

If what you are doing requires registering with the SEC for it to be legal, and there's no way to register what you are doing with the SEC, then that means that it is illegal to do what you are doing (like how could you think that possibly means you are free to go do that thing?).

[latchkey]

If there is no way to register with the SEC to run a securities brokerage, exchange, and clearing house, then what's the point of the SEC again?

[vkou]

There's no way to register these securities with the SEC, because their creators aren't interested in being in compliance with securities laws. It would require more transparency and accountability than they would like.

As a result, the SEC does not allow anyone to run an exchange that trades those illegal securities.

Being a registered security isn't hard, all sorts of stupid and speculative instruments get registered. If your shitcoin isn't able to get registered, the fault is with it, not the SEC. If your exchange isn't allowed to trade that shitcoin, the fault is with the coin, not the SEC. It's not the SEC's job to provide guidance on how to run an exchange that trades in unregistered securities. The only guidance it should provide in answer to that query is 'You can't.'

[latchkey]

> Being a registered security isn't hard, all sorts of stupid and speculative instruments get registered. If your shitcoin isn't able to get registered, the fault is with it, not the SEC.

You're contradicting yourself there. If it isn't hard, it should be easy for a shitcoin to get registered then.

[linuxftw]

No, coinbase is trying to trade unregulated securities and asking the SEC to give them the OK before hand so they don't end up in court. Predictably, the SEC's not going to do that.

[latchkey]

> No, coinbase is trying to trade unregulated securities

And why are those securities (if they are actually securities, which Gensler and the SEC can't even agree on), available to purchase and not regulated? Someone else in this thread just compared this to buying fentanyl. It isn't like there is the FDA giving out spec sheets on drugs.

[ac29]

> cause I'm getting downvotes. See below. The point that I'm making is that if this company is acting illegally, then why is it still trading?

Is your position that no publicly traded company has ever done anything illegal?

[latchkey]

Not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that a publicly traded company went through all of the due diligence that it takes to become a publicly traded company (if you've ever been through that, it is pretty intense) and then asked for further clarification on their existing practices, couldn't get that, then got served a wells notice and is now having to go to court to get further clarification. All because the SEC can't or won't give clear guidance on things that they are supposed to be in charge of.

[ahahahahah]

> asked for further clarification on their existing practices, couldn't get that,

That's not right. They got clarification they just didn't like the answer.

[latchkey]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coinbase-says-just-no-way-to-...

"When we ask specific questions: How do we get to a path to registration? There's never an answer," Shirzad said.

[ahahahahah]

I asked the DEA how to get a path to register to be able to sell fentanyl to anyone, they didn't have any answer so I just opened up shop.

[latchkey]

Terrible analogy. fentanyl requires a prescription to get access to it. There are well defined processes for this.

Until the SEC defines what sort of requirements there are to purchase crypto (like the FDA has [0]), coinbase isn't doing anything illegal by selling it.

[0] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2019/01...

[fallingknife]

Bad analogy because Coinbase isn't you. Coinbase is a licensed securities dealer. So that would be more like a licensed drug distributor asking the DEA how to get a license to distribute fentanyl to hospitals. And the DEA would happily answer them.

[rchaud]

> Coinbase is a public company on NASDAQ. They are about as registered with the SEC, as possible.

That is not even close to correct. NASDAQ itself is a publicly traded company (quote: NDAQ), that nonetheless has to register separately as a securities exchange.