The termination of staking services in four U.S. states carries regulatory risk for Coinbase. Analysts at Berenberg, The Block reports.
On 14 July, the Coinbase exchange уведомила clients in California, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wisconsin of the service suspension in response to local regulator requirements.
On 6 June SEC filed a civil suit against Coinbase. The commission accused the exchange of unregistered sale of securities in the form of a number of tokens.
The regulator’s scrutiny also extended to Coinbase Earn’s staking program.
On the same day, ten state regulators issued similar claims concerning the latter. In addition to those mentioned above in this list, the Maryland Securities Commission, Vermont, Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama and Washington were among those included.
Analysts at Berenberg saw in the latest actions by the platform a precursor to a review of Coinbase Earn.
“We believe that after the SEC’s Ripple ruling Ripple, this news serves as a reminder to investors that there remain significant and far-from-resolved questions for the company on the regulatory front in the United States,” — the analysts noted.
In the context of the verdict in the aforementioned case, the analysts called Coinbase Earn “especially vulnerable to being classified as a security.”
Earlier the platform refused to change its business model due to the SEC lawsuit.
As a reminder, former SEC lawyer John Reed Stark described the Ripple verdict as “fragile” in the Ripple case.
The expert did not rule out that the Commission would appeal and prevail — the higher court could overturn decisions related to “programmatic” and “other sales.” According to the document, purchases of coins totaling more than $700 million by large players nonetheless violated US laws.