Will the Hinman documents be classified as invalid?
Will the Hinman documents be classified as invalid?
It's been an interesting week in the Crypto Sphere with prices seeing some of their most volatility ever in the passed year. If you were quick enough you could have made a few bucks especially of ATOM token which dropped to a low of USD7.50 and High of USD10.28 and currently sitting on USD8.80. Not bad to have made a quick buck on if you were fast enough.
But with 3 major court cases currently brough on by the US Securities and Exchange Commission surrounding Ripple, Court sought to freeze Binance assets and the US court that has granted one week for the SEC to respond to Coinbase's petition.
The Coinbase petition move is quite an interesting one in it, the SEC alleges that Coinbase is offering illegal securities and has charged Coinbase for doing so. So Coinbase filed a petition that could potentially force the SEC to clarify it's position on what a crypto security actually is. This in itself is something the SEC has struggled with.
The period in which the SEC had left to respond, if it was going to or explain why it wasn't comes to an end probably by the time you read this post. Should the SEC respond then we will know what is deemed a security in the crypto sphere. The chances of the SEC responding to clarify are slim because as mentioned above, this is still an unanswered question.
Robinhood suspends tokens
In the lead up to the court proceedings Robinhood has once again found itself at the center of controversy getting on the front foot and any tokens named by the SEC such as Polygon, Cardano and Solana amongst other alt coins. On June 27 Robinhood will sell those assets and credit the funds to user accounts.
If you utilse Robinhood services be sure to move your digital assets to a safe location or risk losing them.
This in itself is driving the market crash that is being led by alt coins and is what's causing investors to reinvest in Bitcoin and Ethereum driving Bitcoin's total market position to almost 50%.
The market position is also keeping Bitcoin at the USD26,000 price point no doubt a lot of caution is being had due to the SEC's request to freeze Binance assets. No one knows entirely what that means or what it could impact.
Binance Asset Freeze
The alarming aspect of the SEC's request to the US courts to freeze Binance assets is that no one knows if this also includes liquidity pools. As a result investors are urged to heed caution and remember if it's not your keys than it's not your wallet.
The safest bet for digital currencies is in your own cold storage wallet safe and secure not left on exchanges and despite many incidents occurring surrounding centralised exchanges no doubt if something does occur there will be many left blindsided.
Many could be left thinking that Crypto is crumbling but it is not it is simply going through a .com change with recent news that andreessen horowitz is expanding to provide services to the UK. What we're seeing is an entire rapid market shift where something has gone down and the US has come in to trample all the cowboys in the sector and now opening up positions for other traders.
It is also important to note that Decentralised Exchanges (DEX) are not being targeted by the US only the centralised exchanges which I think we will begin to see are shut down slowly but surely and some, possibly a lot harder and faster than first anticipated.
Hinman Documents
Back in 2018 the former director of the SEC's financial wing, William Hinman gave a speech where he stated that Ethereum was not to be considered a security which has now come to a major problem for the SEC. Especially when it comes to their case with RIPPLE.
The SEC has asked the US Court to class the Hinman documents invalid Gary Gensler the Chair of the SEC is also coming under fire for a video which is now circulating on Twitter where he names a number of Crypto currencies as not being Securities. This is of course at odds with the SEC's current position within it's court actions.
A piece of evidence that RIPPLE is fighting hard to remain in the court case and will also further impact the SECs actions on Binance and Coinbase as the SEC informed everyone the assets on sale are not securities.
This has obviously caused some law makers and politicians a bit of a headache as they have moved to eject good ol Gary as SEC Chair.
Anyway, fun times currently in this space and a lot happening. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.
image sources provided supplemented by canva pro subscription. This is not financial advice and readers are advised to undertake their own research or seek professional financial services.