A closely watched legal battle between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Coinbase took a new twist on Wednesday as the cryptocurrency exchange filed papers asking a New York federal court to dismiss the agency’s lawsuit that accuses the company of offering a dozen unregistered securities.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla, Coinbase claimed the case should be thrown out in part because the digital assets it lists for trading are not “investment contracts”—one of a number of instruments, including stocks and bonds, that qualify as securities under U.S. law. If an asset in question is not a security, the SEC lacks jurisdiction to regulate it.
According to Coinbase, the tokens it sells can’t be investment contracts, because buyers and sellers are simply exchanging assets that are not tied to any contractual obligation.
In an interview with Fortune, Coinbase‘s top lawyer Paul Grewal…
