In a surprising twist, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against ConsenSys. Per the details in the filing, the regulator is accusing the blockchain startup of brokering unregistered securities tokens with MetaMask.
Shocking SEC Versus ConsenSys Twist
This new lawsuit is coming as a major shock to observers in the broader digital currency ecosystem. The SEC earlier hinted at its investigation into Ethereum (ETH) and ConsenSys. However, the infrastructure firm announced recently that the markets regulator confirmed that it was no longer interested in pursuing this investigation.
In this latest lawsuit, the SEC claimed that since at least 2016, ConsenSys has conducted securities brokerage to different assets it failed to register. For this, the regulator said the firm has violated Federal Securities laws.
The SEC specifically mentioned the MetaMask Swap service as one of the major avenues it used to break the law. While the SEC claimed that ConsenSys failed to register this business, it said the firm had raked in over $250 million in fees.
This lawsuit has stirred an uproar in the broader digital currency ecosystem as it failed to follow the usual process. While many saw the lawsuit as an ambush, insider sources noted that ConsenSys had its eyes on the charges before now.
Unrelenting SEC Crackdown on Crypto
Over the past couple of months, the SEC has sent Wells Notices to several crypto entities for various flagged offerings. The markets regulator has notified Uniswap and Robinhood of possible lawsuits for their crypto services.
One trend is common among these entities and that is the decision to fight the SEC in court. Ripple Labs Inc. trailed this path and got a partial victory last July.
While the SEC is known to pursue crypto firms with lawsuits, so also does some Web3 players stay on the attacking lane by suing the regulator. As reported earlier by Crypto-Vanguard, Coinbase recently sued the duo of SEC and FDIC over violations of FOIA.
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