Popular pro-XRP attorney John E. Deaton has weighed in on the ongoing court case between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange.
In June, U.S. securities regulators filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, accusing the exchange of operating an “unregistered securities exchange, broker-dealer and clearinghouse.”
On Aug. 4, Coinbase responded to the allegations by filing a motion to dismiss. The defendants allege that their exchange does not offer any securities and therefore does not operate under the SEC’s jurisdiction.
Deaton raises odds of Coinbase motion to dismiss after Uniswap win
according to a Post X on August 30John Deaton has said that based on Uniswap’s recent legal victory, Coinbase’s motion to dismiss the SEC case has a 35% chance of being upheld by the court.
On August 29, Judge Katherine Failla, who presided over the Coinbase v. SEC case, dismissed a class action lawsuit against Uniswap, which was accused by multiple investors of allegedly promoting “fraudulent tokens.”
The court dismissed the case, citing the lack of “identifiable defendants” and the ambiguous state of U.S. cryptocurrency regulation.
today at @scottmelkAs I said, Judge Faila has a 20-25% chance of dismissing the SEC’s complaint (or partially dismissing the pledge issue), ruling that Howey does not apply to secondary sales of digital assets
An exchange in a blind buy/sell transaction. … https://t.co/irSz1UvSJ9— John E. Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) August 30, 2023
Originally, John Deaton claimed that there was a 20-25% chance of Coinbase winning, and it was possible that the SEC’s allegations would be dismissed in whole or in part, perhaps with the exception of the Commission’s complaint about the exchange’s staking program.
The lawyer believes that the court may find that the Howey test is not suitable for the case of “secondary sales of digital assets in the exchange’s blind buying and selling transactions.”
Combining this prediction with Uniswap’s victory over disgruntled investors, Deaton is now suggesting that Judge Faila has a 35 percent chance of ruling against the SEC, dismissing the agency’s lawsuit against Coinbase.
More losses for the SEC after XRP?maybe, maybe not
Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has suffered some losses against major players in the cryptocurrency space, giving the financial regulator a negative public relations (PR) impression.
There was a burst of euphoria in the cryptocurrency space on Aug. 30 after a U.S. court rejected the SEC’s rejection of Grayscale’s application to amend its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to a Bitcoin ETF.
In addition, not long ago, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that programmatic sales of XRP did not violate US securities laws, which allowed Ripple to score some major victories against US securities regulators.
However, it may be too early to tell if the SEC has failed in the case against Coinbase. After all, John Deaton’s predictions give cryptocurrency exchanges less than half the chance of success in their ongoing legal battle.
Also, it’s worth noting that the SEC recently dealt with similar troubles after US Judge Jed Rakeoff denied Terraform’s motion to dismiss the Commission’s fraud charges against him, pinning his case on Ripple’s court victory superior.
Total crypto market cap valued at $1.036 trillion on the daily chart | Source: TOTAL chart on Tradingview.com
Featured image via Getty Images, chart via Tradingview.
