SEC Cedes No Ground on Crypto With Coinbase Insider Trading Case

The SEC’s insider trading case involving a former Coinbase employee is expected to ripple far beyond the crypto platform and underscores the SEC’s tough approach to wrangling the $1.3 trillion market.

“The SEC isn’t ceding any ground,” said Usha Rodrigues, a business law professor at the University of Georgia. “It has the jurisdiction to regulate in this space and it wants to assert its authority to do so.”

The SEC on July 21 brought a civil enforcement action against Coinbase manager Ishan Wahi for allegedly giving his friends non-public information so that they could buy tokens before they were listed ...