Mark Cuban tells Coinbase CEO to ‘go on the offensive against SEC’

After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission purportedly threatened to sue Coinbase over Coinbase’s upcoming Lend program, the billionaire entrepreneur and crypto investor Mark Cuban urged cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to “go on the offensive” against the SEC.

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“Brian, this is “Regulation via Litigation”. They aren’t capable of working through this themselves and are afraid of making mistakes in doing so. They (sic) leave it to the lawyers. Just the people you don’t want impacting the new technologies. You have to go on the offensive,” Cuban said in a tweet in response to Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong.

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According to Armstrong, the SEC’s approach towards the firm has been “sketchy” and the market regulator has failed to offer reasons and instead has threatened to sue. Armstrong also stated that many other cryptocurrency firms continue to provide a lend option, but Coinbase is not permitted to do so by SEC.

According to Paul Grewal, the business’s chief legal officer, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given Coinbase a Wells notice, which is an official means of telling a company that it plans to sue the company in court. As a result, he stated that Coinbase’s ‘Lend’ product will not be available until at least October.

Programs that enable cryptocurrency owners to lend their coins in exchange for interest are growing increasingly widespread throughout the world, but some authorities, notably in the United States, are raising concerns, claiming that such products should conform with current securities regulations. According to a court ruling issued in July, the state of New Jersey ordered cryptocurrency startup BlockFi Inc. to stop offering interest-bearing accounts, which had gathered $14.7 billion from investors.

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For months, the SEC, led by Chairman Gary Gensler, has hinted that more crypto regulation is on the way. In an interview, Gensler stated that given crypto’s multi-trillion-dollar valuation, it would require a public regulatory framework similar to any other sector.