Coinbase Retracts Announcement of Regulatory Approval to List Coins Considered Securities

On July 18th, Bloomberg has reported that Coinbase, the most popular Crypto exchange and wallet around the Globe, withdrew its previous statement stating that it has received the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s approval to trade in securities.

After its acquisition last month of Keystone Capital Corp., Venovate Marketplace Inc., and Digital Wealtl LLC, Coinbase was last week reported saying that now, it can operate as a broker dealer, offering securities like digital tokens.

The reports of that time say that with the benefits of two regulators, the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the acquisition had occurred.

Since then, Coinbase has switched its statement. It told Bloomberg that it had not at all received any regulatory endorsement.

Rachael Howritz, Spokeswoman of Coinbase, emailed Bloomberg saying that it is not correct to say that the SEC and FINRA had approved Coinbase’s purchase of Keystone, as SEC was not at all involved in the whole process.

Even though ‘the comment was declined’ by FINRA over this incident, the SEC has confirmed that they have not given Coinbase any ‘implicit approval’ about the deal.

The stock and crypto trading app, Robinhood, was in the rumors of obtaining a U.S banking license, earlier in June. Circle, a peer-to-peer payments app, too have been chasing both, registration as a brokerage and trading venue with the SEC as well as a banking license.