Amid SEC Wells Notice, Coinbase Finds Support in Crypto Community

After the SEC issued a Wells notice regarding Coinbase, the cryptocurrency community rallied to support the company. Both Paul Grewal and Brian Armstrong, executives at Coinbase, took to Twitter to address the issue and share their perspectives. While most of the community expressed solidarity with Coinbase, a few online users voiced their grievances with the company’s practices.

Coinbase has spent an extraordinary amount of time and resources working in good faith to seek regulatory clarity from the SEC.

The idea that they'd be rewarded with nothing but a Wells notice is sad, but not surprising from an agency best known for regulating by enforcement. https://t.co/BZ4a9AefEF

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) March 22, 2023

Polygon’s Co-Founders back Coinbase

Sandeep Nailwal and Jynti Kanani, co-founders of Polygon, took to Twitter to voice their support for Coinbase. Nailwal praised Coinbase as the epitome of compliance in cryptocurrency and questioned the need for the SEC’s actions. On the other hand, Kanani expressed her unwavering support for Coinbase and the entire crypto industry. Together, the co-founders sent a strong message of solidarity and endorsement for Coinbase’s practices.

Most of the community favors Coinbase, with many online users highlighting the company’s unwavering commitment to complying with regulations from the beginning. Brian Armstrong, in particular, has received praise for his contributions to the crypto community. However, some critics have aimed at the SEC for issuing the Wells Notice, accusing the organization of being motivated by greed and seeking to extract funds from Coinbase.

2/ Two years ago the SEC reviewed our business in detail and approved Coinbase to go public. Our S1 clearly explained our asset listing process and included 57 references to staking. Coinbase runs a rigorous asset review process and has rejected more than 90% of assets that have…

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) March 22, 2023

Coinbase criticisms gain traction

Although Coinbase has received widespread support from the cryptocurrency community, some have voiced their concerns and objections. Several netizens have pointed out that Coinbase’s decision to delist XRP was ultimately pointless, as the company still found itself targeted by the SEC. Moreover, some critics have used the opportunity to call attention to the various questionable coins listed on the platform, dissecting Brian Armstrong’s comments about the company’s rigorous asset review process on Twitter.

On March 23, Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-Founder of Coinbase, tweeted about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) issuance of a Wells notice to the business. Armstrong expanded by saying that the information centered on staking and asset listings and that these warnings often resulted in enforcement action.

Similarly, the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase, Paul Grewal, posted a thread on Twitter that detailed the Wells Notification. On the other hand, Grewal focused on the legal side of the case and said that Coinbase had met with the SEC more than thirty times in the preceding nine months but had yet to receive a reaction from those meetings.