Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, January 18th, and today we are talking about Coinbase

versus the SEC. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go

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Well, friends, we have an interesting one today, a big legal battle with some serious significance,

and one more indicator of how important the legal system is when it comes to the crypto industry

in America right now. So, here's what was going on. Yesterday, Coinbase and the SEC appeared in New York

Federal District Court for the first substantial hearing in their case. Across a five-hour hearing,

Coinbase justified their position that the court should be thrown out before it even gets started.

Now, the SEC, for their part, argued that the lawsuit has merit and should be allowed to continue

to trial.

The SEC are putting forward two major claims against Coinbase, that their staking as a service

product is sold as an unregistered security, and more critically, that the tokens offered

on their trading platform are sold as unregistered securities.

This would mean that Coinbase has failed to register with the SEC regarding their retail exchange,

their prime brokerage, and their wallet services. The SEC presented a dozen examples of non-compliant

tokens, with the most prominent ones being Solana, Cardano, and Maddoch. In many ways, this case,

along with the Binance case, is positioned to decide whether crypto tokens in general fall under

the SEC's jurisdiction

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