According to a report by Coindesk, a district judge in the District of Columbia has rejected part of the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ).
In an order issued later on Friday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the SEC’s charges against Binance, including the initial coin offering, ongoing sales of BNB, BNB Vault, staking services, unregistered activities, and fraud allegations, can proceed. However, she also granted the motion by Binance and CZ to dismiss the accusations related to “secondary sales of BNB and Simple Earn.”
Last summer, the SEC sued Binance, Binance.US, and its founder Changpeng Zhao, alleging that these exchanges provided unregistered brokerage, trading, and clearing services in the U.S. involving unregistered digital asset securities. Subsequently, the SEC also made similar allegations against Coinbase, Kraken, ConsenSys, and MetaMask this week.
According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted in dismissing the motion related to the secondary sales of BNB that the nature of tokens can evolve over time, and just because a token was initially considered a security does not mean it always remains as such.
Terrett views this as a significant victory for digital asset secondary sales, as this case significantly enhances the clarity of cryptocurrency assets in secondary market sales. In the future, exchanges like Coinbase, ConsenSys, and Kraken can cite this ruling in litigation to strengthen their positions.
