The SEC's legal battle against Ripple involved coming after them on 2 fronts - first was their claim the company illegally profited by selling an unlicensed security (XRP Tokens) violating the Securities Act of 1933. The second targeted the company's co-founders Christian Larsen and Bradley Garlinghouse, saying they were the ones who made the decisions at the company, so they were charged with "aiding and abettting”.

Today, the SEC's targeting of Larsen and Garlinghouse has officially come to an end as District Judge Analisa Torres announced that the US securities regulator notified the court that it would not continue in the case and has issued a “voluntary dismissal”.

Ripple's lead lawyer Stuart Alderoty shared the news first saying;

"The SEC made a serious mistake going after Brad & Chris personally – and now, they’ve capitulated, dismissing all charges against our executives. This is not a settlement. This is a surrender by the SEC.

That’s 3 consecutive wins for Ripple including the July 13 decision ruling that as a matter of law XRP is NOT a security, the Oct 3 decision denying the SEC’s bid for an interlocutory appeal, and now this." on X.

Current CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded saying;

"In all seriousness, Chris and I (in a case involving no claims of fraud or misrepresentations) were targeted by the SEC in a ruthless attempt to personally ruin us and the company so many have worked hard to build for over a decade.

The SEC repeatedly kept its eye off the ball while secretly meeting with the likes of SBF – failing again and again to protect US consumers & businesses. How many millions of taxpayer $ were wasted?! Feels good to finally be vindicated."

FTX a Massive Blemish On An Already Troubled SEC...

The SEC's 'crack down' on crypto has targeted companies like Coinbase, Binance and Ripple - but where are the investors accusing these companies of wrongdoing? Who did Coinbase, Binance, or Ripple scam? You would think reddit and other crypto related forums would be full of these complaints, but when searching for terms that should lead to them, nothing is found.

While the SEC was busy targeting these companies, FTX was actively misusing users funds and behaving suspiciously fearless of being caught.  Ironically, it was one of the people under SEC investigation who brought the FTX issue to light - Binance CEO 'CZ'.

This means if CZ had not exposed Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX would still be freely spending their users funds, while their top 2 competitors faced SEC harassment - suspicious to say the least.

It makes you wonder - could SEC deliberately be hiding corruption by appearing ignorant and disorganized? 

The Strangest Contradiction...

The most alarming and confusing factor in the SEC's current actions has to be the fact that the SEC evaluated Coinbase just a couple years ago, when they approved the company to go public and sale shares of their stock.  This process involves a deep evaluation of the business, and obviously, if a business's main source of income was unlawful, they would not have been approved.

But they were approved. Coinbase even passed a phase where the SEC asked questions about any parts of the business they wanted clarification on, Coinbase answered them, and they were approved. 

Nothing has changed since Coinbase was worthy of SEC approval. There's no new leadership at the SEC since they deemed Coinbase's business legitimate just two years ago, Coinbase isn't offering anything now that they were not then. But seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly Coinbase is operating outside of the law. 

So SEC saying;  just because they approved a company seeking approval to go public and sell share shares on the stock market, it does not mean that company is legitimate - no one has been able to make sense of why the SEC is now undermining themselves in such an extreme way.

Next For Ripple...

While the charges against company founders are dropped, the case against the company itself is still considered ongoing.  While the SEC lost on their first attempt, the last statement from them was that they are appealing that decision.

But some say dropping the charges against the founders is a sign they may do the same with the charges against the company - because if the company is guilty, those running it would be as well - it would be odd to drop one and not the other.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London Newsroom
GlobalCryptoPress | Breaking Crypto News

Coinbase, the well-known American cryptocurrency company, just dropped some major news: the launch of its newest exchange, "Coinbase International." 

Thanks to a recent regulatory license approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, this new platform will allow Coinbase to operate globally and expand its reach beyond the US market.

Currently, Coinbase is ranked as the second-largest exchange globally, trailing behind its competitor Binance, which interestingly did the reverse - starting internationally and then launching a US exchange.

However, at the time of its launch, Coinbase International will exclusively cater to institutional investors outside of the United States, meaning that retail traders will have to wait a bit longer to gain access.

With this comes a first for Coinbase - leveraged trading. Coinbase International will offer leveraged trading, but they're starting small with a maximum 5X leverage option.

A Warning Shot...

Coinbase's move into the international market may also serve as a warning to the US government, particularly the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to provide more clarity and answers to unresolved questions regarding crypto regulations. 

If they continue to fail in their duties, they risk pushing companies like Coinbase out of the US market, which could have a significant economic impact, leading investors to seek out unregulated areas of the market.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was asked if Coinbase would relocate entirely if regulators continued to fail to provide clarity, he said "anything is on the table".

More info soon...

Unfortunately, Coinbase has not revealed which countries will have access to the new exchange, but you can sign up on their platform to see if you're eligible.

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk 
Breaking Crypto News

 Coinbase posted a $1.1 billion second-quarter loss and lower-than-expected revenue as the largest US cryptocurrency exchange was battered by tumbling digital-asset prices. Shares slid on the news after the close. In this video Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi speaks to Bloomberg.

Video courtesy of Bloomberg

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was chastised for promoting and facilitating the trade of the GYEN stablecoin, which turned out to be a failure. GYEN is a cryptocurrency that was created on the Ethereum network to match the value of the Japanese yen.

"Donovan," a representative of "hundreds of users" of the platform in the case, filed the claim in the Federal Court of North Carolina, United States.

In addition to the exchange, the lawsuit also names GMO-Z.com as the issuing business of the GYEN token. These two entities are accused of giving investors inaccurate information about the cryptocurrency's reliability when Coinbase launched it for exchange and released a guide outlining its key features.

According to the lawsuit, investors would have purchased the GYEN tokens believing that each one was worth one yen, but their value was "inflated."

The token's value sank by more than 80% in a single day.

According to CoinMarketCap statistics, GYEN is now trading at $0.0077, while the correct price is $0.77 USD per yen at the time of writing, that is 10X lower than intended.

GMO-Z also has another stablecoin, ZUSD (ZUSD), that is pegged to the value of the US dollar but has found a way to keep its peg to the currency.

The lawsuit currently awaits review, filed in the US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
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Author: Justin Derbek
New York News Desk
Global Crypto Press Association / Breaking Crypto News

A builder at heart, Tobi began writing computer code in his early teens. He soon became an active member of the open source community, contributing to projects such as Ruby on Rails, Liquid and ActiveMerchant. Building on his experience developing open source projects, Tobi launched an ecommerce platform in 2004 focused on selling snowboarding equipment. This online store soon grew into what we know today as Shopify. Tobi’s experience as a founder & CEO, scaling his business from a small, niche online marketplace into what has become a critical backbone of global ecommerce will help guide Coinbase as we seek to bring crypto to more people and businesses around the world."

Which brings the obvious question to mind: will Shopify soon support cryptocurrency payments?

In 2021 they set a new annual revenue earnings record of $1.12 billion - giving Tobi the title of "Canada’s wealthiest company founder".

Read the full announcement here.

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GlobalCryptoPress.com / Silicon Valley Newsroom
Breaking Crypto News

Last Friday Binance US lost their CEO after just 3 months. Prior to taking the role with Binance, he served as acting comptroller in the Trump administration.

Brian Brooks gave as the reason for his departure disagreements over strategic direction.

And the 2nd former regulator to leave a top crypto firm in recent days...

Brett Redfearn has resigned as Coinbase's head of capital markets after just four months in the job.

Redfearn, a former Securities and Exchange Commission official, was the SEC's director of the trading and markets division prior to joining Coinbase.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Redfearn's departure was triggered by Coinbase's shift in focus away from digital asset securities.

A spokesperson from Coinbase confirms the story and says the Redfearn left to pursue other goals, but on positive terms.