Key Points
- The Robinhood investigation was closed without any pursuit of enforcement actions.
- SEC’s latest moves also include dismissing the enforcement case against Coinbase.
The US SEC under the current Trump administration is ending lawsuits and investigations against crypto companies. The latest ones include Robinhood and Open Sea.
SEC Closes Robinhood Investigation
Bloomberg reported that the US SEC has just closed an investigation into Robinhood’s crypto operations without any pursuit of enforcement actions.
The publication said that the crypto company disclosed last year that it had received a Wells notice, indicating that the American regulator had initially decided to recommend an enforcement action.
Bloomberg quoted Dan Gallagher, Robinhood’s chief legal, compliance, and corporate affairs officer, who said that this investigation should have never opened. He also said that Robinhood has and will always respect federal securities laws and never allowed transactions in securities.
He also mentioned that the SEC’s case against the financial services company would have failed.
Robinhood has disagreed with the argument that most crypto transactions are subject to federal securities law, and it made difficult choices not to offer certain products and services that the former SEC Chair Gary Gensler claimed were securities.
The company also stated that instead of regulation by enforcement, it’s time for the SEC to turn to “regulation by regulation”, offering market participants clarity and an appropriate regulatory framework for crypto.
Last month, Robinhood agreed to pay $45 million to settle separate allegations with the SEC, Bloomberg reported.
Robinhood has been expanding its consumer finance services beyond its retail investing platform, including in the crypto space. The company has credit card and retirement products and has penetrated international markets, with a recent expansion in Asia.
This comes following another recent announcement that the SEC had closed its investigation into Open Sea.
SEC Closed Investigation into Open Sea
On February 22, Open Sea’s co-founder revealed that the regulator closed its investigation into the NFT marketplace, and this is a win for everyone who is creating and building in the crypto industry.
Devin Finzer said that trying to classify NFTs as securities would have been a step backward, one that would misinterpret the law and slow innovation.
He concluded by saying that every creator should be able to build freely without barriers.
Last week, the US SEC also agreed to dismiss its unlawful enforcement case against Coinbase.
