U.S. appeals court questions SEC's reasons for rejecting Coinbase's crypto regulation petition

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reviewed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) decision to dismiss Coinbase's petition for cryptocurrency regulation rulemaking, questioning its reasons as too limited. In July 2022, Coinbase asked the SEC to propose and adopt regulatory rules for "securities offered and traded through digital native methods," including clarifying which crypto assets are securities. The SEC dismissed the petition in late 2023, prompting Coinbase to apply to the Court of Appeals to force the SEC to respond. Judge Thomas Ambro said the SEC did not need to explain the reasons for the dismissal in detail, but the record should contain substantive content. He called the SEC's dismissal order "almost nothing." Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said on social media that the SEC "refuses to provide a reasonable explanation for its simple dismissal, but uses its so-called power to arbitrarily enforce the law against our industry." (Cointelegraph)