In an ongoing legal battle against two major cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has declared several tokens as securities. These tokens include SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, and NEXO in the case against Coinbase. For Binance, the list includes SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, ATOM, SAND, MANA, ALGO, AXS, and COTI.

This SEC statement highlights its ongoing effort to regulate the cryptocurrency market and could have substantial implications for these tokens and their holders. If the SEC manages to classify these tokens as securities, it would subject them to more stringent rules and regulatory obligations.

Barry Silbert, the founder of Digital Currency Group (DCG), commented about the situation via Twitter, noting: “I think there are no proof of work tokens in any of the lawsuits (BTC, LTC, XMRETC, ZEC, etc.).” Silbert’s tweet refers to the SEC’s decision not to include tokens that use the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism in their lawsuits. This includes Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Monero (XMR), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Zcash (ZEC), among others.

The implication of Silbert’s statement suggests that the SEC might be differentiating between PoW tokens and other tokens. This differentiation could lead to different regulatory standards and implications for tokens depending on their underlying consensus mechanism.

This ongoing case and the SEC decisions could set a precedent for future regulations and classifications in the crypto market. As such, all eyes within the crypto community are very focused on the developments. How these decisions will shape the regulatory landscape for digital assets remains to be seen.