> Despite Coinbase keeping Lend off the market and providing detailed information, the SEC still won’t explain why they see a problem. Rather they have now told us that if we launch Lend they intend to sue. Yet again, we asked if the SEC would share their reasoning with us, and yet again they refused.
Plain as day!
And as to experience, I was CTO of the first company to settle with the SEC for an ICO:
> …all of the SEC’s questions in writing and then again in person… They asked for documents and written responses…
Plain as day!
And since you have so much experience dealing with the SEC, you surely understand that the specific questions they ask will typically reveal precisely their rationale for taking the (extraordinary) step of an enforcement action, just as a prosecutor’s investigatory questions reveals their legal theory of a crime.
The SEC doesn’t go around issuing Wells notices every day, and they typically don’t issue them without giving recipients the opportunity to choose a different path. We’re only hearing one side of this story, and even that one side contains so many hints of willful obtuseness that you have to be a blind partisan to take Coinbase’s “shock” at face value.
The SEC can and does provide candid advice. I know entrepreneurs who have had lengthy calls with both state and federal SEC reps who will give straight talk.
This is not that. This is preparation to make a court case to use as precedent to attack the industry.
I feel the SEC is being a bad actor - stifling innovation rather than encouraging it.
Over the last 10 years the HN chattering class has dismissed crypto endlessly. I laugh all the way to the bank and its rise has been inevitable to anyone who understands software and finance. I look forward to the court case.
No admission of wrongdoing, all money returned to investors, and IMO we didn't do anything wrong despite the SEC's opinion. I laugh to the bank because I've been in crypto for a decade!
Because it's money that counts above all else, right?
Edit: It seems like your former company has still been operating in a shady manner since your departure [1], making it that much harder for me to take anything you say in good faith.
Hence my use of the phrase, "former employer". I'm simply observing a pattern at your former employer, whose co-founder remained there through June of this year; a pattern which makes it hard for me to believe that it was acting in good faith during your time there.
> No admission of wrongdoing (…) IMO we didn't do anything wrong despite the SEC's opinion
No admission of wrongdoing is always a red flag, implying there was definite wrongdoing. It’s good that your opinion matters less than the SEC’s “opinion”. Atleast your investors got their money back, I guess…
I personally look forward to the SEC handing it to Coinbase hard. After having Coinbase ignore multiple support requests for over 3 months where they weren't giving me my staking rewards, I can only assume they decided to just up and keep them for themselves. Coinbase will always be considered a joke to me when they can't even respond to their customers.
Why do people constantly cite legal fees to make a point or pour a foundation for another argument? That’s not the first time I’ve read a statement like that and it’s just a baffling thing to say. I’ve never heard “I’ve paid a lot of doctors so you should hear me out on ...”, oh, wait, yes I have.
“My attorney will be in touch,” too, like, you want to generate billable time for yourself to effectuate a threat to threaten me? Never understood it. Cool?
Plain as day!
And as to experience, I was CTO of the first company to settle with the SEC for an ICO:
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2018/33-10575.pdf
Many years of experience in crypto at the highest levels, dealt with millions of dollars in attorney fees, etc. etc.