New York District Judge Katherine Polk Failla questioned Coinbase in court on Wednesday, asking whether the tokens listed on its exchange are securities.
In June, Coinbase was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency. Coinbase has pushed back against the accusations, calling for the case to be dismissed and accusing regulators of taking an "enforcement regulatory" approach.
Coinbase attorney William Savitt went into depth on how securities are defined, noting that "there is a difference between investing in Beanie Baby Inc. and buying Beanie Babies."
According to the SEC’s June complaint, the SEC said tokens including SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH and NEXO are securities.
Savitt noted that Coinbase does not believe that the tokens listed on its website can ever be considered securities. “We do not believe that token transactions can never be investment contracts,” he said. However, the SEC did not raise any allegations in its lawsuit that met the definition of an investment contract, he added.
The judge said Wednesday she would not make a decision on whether to dismiss the case.