The Donald Trump administration has completely changed its cryptocurrency regulations and enforcement tenors, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) specifically suspends, rejects and amends various actions raised.
These changes came as the SEC designated Commissioner Hester Perth and directed the Cryptody Task Force with the goal of “making it clear that federal securities laws apply to the cryptocurrency market.”
Protos has identified crypto-related lawsuits and investigations that the SEC has revised since Trump took office. You can see it here.
Justin San
Justin Sun, an advisor to Trump’s World Liberty Financial and a leading investor in $Trump Memocoin, was sued alongside the Tron Foundation.
Read more: Justin Sun claims the SEC, Wash Trading Scheme from his US apartment
The appeals in the suit included that TRX and BTT were offered as securities without registration and Sun was directed to market operations, including washing transactions.
The lawsuit was suspended on February 26, 2025 in a joint complaint.
Binance
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has been sued by the SEC for allegations that it failed to register as a stock exchange, a wash trade token and an incorrect customer fund.
Read more: CFTC lawsuit against Binance’s claim CZ trades against users
On February 10th, a joint motion was filed to maintain the lawsuit, and on May 29th the lawsuit was dismissed.
Ripples
Ripple Labs was the target of the SEC lawsuit launched in the first Trump administration. Unregistered securities have been sold.
Read more: Ripple stops XRP reporting after sec ‘sec’ ase odparency buts crsparency’
On March 19, Ripple announced that the SEC would dismiss appeals against it.
On April 16th, this resonated with the joint move and curbed the appeal.
Unchanging
Immutch explaining itself as a “web3 game hub” announced on March 25 that the SEC had stopped investigating its immutable.
Immutable previously published a notification on November 1, 2024. This publicly disclosed that it had received Wells Notices from the SEC related to the list of IMX tokens and sales.
Yuga Labs
Yuga Labs, the company behind the boring APE Yacht Club and other NFT projects, announced on March 3, 2025 that “SEC has officially shut down its Yuga Labs investigation.”
Kraken
Kraken, a US-based crypto exchange, was the target of an SEC lawsuit that allegedly provided unregistered securities.
On March 3, 2025, Kraken announced:SEC staff had in principle agreed to dismiss the lawsuit against Kraken. ”
On March 27, 2025, the officials filed joint provisions to dismiss the lawsuit.
Read more: kraken exec says it aims to “build trust” an hour before SEC probe break
The lawsuit is separate from the previous case where Kraken agreed to settle, which relates to its provision of staking as a service.
Consensy
Consensys was the goal of the SEC lawsuit in relation to the swap functionality built into the Metamask wallet and software.
Read more: Consensys says SEC has specified security, but where does not say it
On February 27, 2025, Consensee announced that it and the SEC “consent that, in principle, the securities enforcement case relating to MetaMask should be dismissed.”
On March 27th, joint dismissal provisions were submitted.
Gemini
The SEC targeted Gemini for investigation.
On February 27, 2025, Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevos announced that the SEC had concluded its investigation and “will not pursue enforcement measures against the company.”
In his long X post, he also argued that the agency should now reimburse the costs to Gemini.All those involved in these actions should be publicly fired immediately. Their names, roles, and actions they took part must be posted on the SEC website.“
He went on to say, “There should be a process that bans people like Gary Jensler… there should be a process that has never been before or once again hired by agents.”
It is not clear how Winklevoss’ proposal will expand with the agency’s existing council approval process.
opensea
Opensea announced on February 21, 2025 that the SEC has concluded its investigation into the NFT market.
Read more: Opensea Hit with Wells Notice, SEC Litigation says “misinterprets the law”
This was separate from the criminal case targeting former head of former product Nathanial Chastain for insider trading.
Coinbase
Coinbase was targeted by the SEC in a lawsuit that allegedly operated as an unregistered broker, exchange and liquidation agency.
Read more: Why did SEC publish Coinbase?
On February 27, Coinbase announced that the lawsuit would be dismissed and that joint provisions had been filed. The revised version was submitted the following day.
crypto.com
Crypto.com released a press release on March 27, 2025. This alleges that the SEC “officially closed Crypto.com’s investigation and notified Crypto.com that it would not carry out enforcement action against the company.”
crypto.com received a Wells notification from the SEC in late 2024, and as a result, it became a company Choose to sue the regulator.
Robin Hood
Robinhood announced on February 24 that the SEC had received guidance three days ago, saying that it had “concluded the investigation and had no intention of proceeding with enforcement measures.”
This was following the Wells notification that Robin Hood received in May 2024.
Underpen
UnisWap Labs, the company responsible for much of the development of the UNISWAP protocol, announced on February 25th its “SEC has officially been shut down and multi-year survey on UNISWAP labs without action.”
Uniswap announced in April 2024 that it had received a Wells notification from the SEC.
Staking guidance
On May 29, the SEC announced that, in its view, staking activities related to proofing “we do not involve the offer and sale of securities.”
Overall, these various cases and changes suggest that the SEC intends to bring far fewer cases for crypto companies during this semester.
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