Former US SEC official: SEC may end lawsuits against Coinbase, Binance, Ripple and other crypto companies

Odaily News John Reed Stark, a former SEC official, believes the SEC’s lawsuit against Coinbase may be stillborn as the regulator’s newly formed cryptocurrency task force seeks to resolve previous enforcement actions against the exchange.
In a Feb. 17 post on X, Stark explained why the SEC requested a 28-day extension to respond to Coinbase’s petition for leave to appeal. “According to the unprecedented three-page joint motion, the SEC’s review of cryptocurrency-related issues is ‘ongoing,’ and the extension will give the SEC time to conduct an ‘appropriate review’ as it prepares its response to Coinbase’s petition. In other words, the SEC’s case against Coinbase may be over,” Stark said.
Stark estimated that the SEC’s lawsuit against Binance will also have the same outcome. He cited a joint motion filed on February 11, in which the two parties believed that the SEC’s cryptocurrency task force “may influence and promote the potential resolution of this case.”
The same is true for Ripple, which has been embroiled in litigation with the SEC since 2020, and “expects that all cryptocurrency-related appeals, including those in the Ripple case, will be suspended or, more likely, withdrawn entirely.”