Well, that escalated quickly.
In a 24-hour span, the SEC sued both Binance and Coinbase—the two largest cryptocurrency platforms in the U.S. With the debt ceiling now resolved, Hedgeye senior policy analyst JT Taylor believes the government may be gearing up to make crypto regulation a priority.
“They’re basically alleging Binance is operating in a number of ways not dissimilar to how FTX was operating,” explains Josh Steiner in this clip from The Macro Show. “In other words, co-mingling customer funds in different vehicles and artificially inflating trade volumes within their U.S. arm.”
News of the Binance lawsuit sent Bitcoin prices falling more than 6% Monday. Then, Tuesday morning, the SEC announced it was suing Coinbase for acting as an unregistered broker.
“It’s not inconsistent with how the SEC’s acted toward the broader crypto space for some time now,” Steiner adds. “They’ve been moving pretty aggressively.”
Watch the full clip above.
