SEC Labels 16 Crypto Assets As Securities In Lawsuit Against Kraken

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has classified 16 crypto assets as securities in its lawsuit filed against Kraken.

The SEC sued the crypto exchange Monday, accusing it of illegally operating as a securities exchange without registering with the regulator.

In the latest court filing, the SEC identified Cardano (ADA), Axie Infinity (AXS), Algorand (ALGO), Cosmos (ATOM), Chiliz’ CHZ, COTI, Dash (DASH), FIL, FLOW, ICP, Decentraland’s MANA, Polygon’s MATIC, NEAR, OMG, Sandbox’s SAND and Solana (SOL) as “crypto asset securities.”

The regulator, in another lawsuit against Binance in June, declared more than 60 crypto assets as securities.

The SEC alleged at the time that 10 popular crypto assets like ADA, SOL, MATIC, Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), ATOM, SAND, MANA, AXS and COTI were unregistered securities.

The financial watchdog also classified Ripple (XRP), LBRY Credits (LBC) and ALGO as securities in its lawsuit filed against crypto exchange Bittrex in April.

It appears the majority of the crypto assets deemed as securities by the SEC are flourishing in the market, with some of them outperforming Bitcoin during the recent market rally.

SOL has seen a nearly 463% year-to-date increase, while ADA saw a more than 50% surge as the Cardano blockchain transactions climbed by 49% in the second quarter of this year due to network upgrades and an inflow of users.

Polygon’s MATIC also saw a surge of around 24.1% over the past 30 days, while Axie Infinity’s AXS was up by 28.8% over the same period.

Following the SEC classification in June, the Solana Foundation, which oversees the development of the Solana blockchain, said it is willing to work with regulators to bring clarity to the situation.

However, it disagreed with the SEC’s classification of its native token as a security.

“We welcome the continued engagement of policymakers as constructive partners on regulation to achieve legal clarity on these issues for the thousands of entrepreneurs across the U.S. building in the digital assets space,” Solana Foundation said.