30s Summary

Consensys CEO Joe Lubin believes that Donald Trump’s reelection may save crypto firms substantial legal expenses in fighting the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Lubin is hopeful the new administration will settle or drop ongoing cases. The optimism follows Trump’s pro-crypto campaign promises, including plans to replace SEC chair Gary Gensler, a known crypto critic. Lubin pointed out that Trump’s understanding of popular trends bodes well for crypto firms, which have struggled with regulatory issues in the US.

Full Article

If Donald Trump gets reelected as President of the United States, he could save cryptocurrency firms a ton of money in legal battles with the US securities regulator, says Joe Lubin, CEO of Consensys. He’s hoping that Trump’s team will find a cool and calm way to drop or settle the outstanding cases. Lubin shared his thoughts with Cointelegraph at DevCon 2024 in Thailand.

This might not mean every case will be dismissed, but Lubin believes it could save the cryptocurrency industry hundreds of millions of dollars. Lubin’s optimistic take comes after Trump’s recent victory in the presidential election. It turns out, the crypto crowd is pretty chuffed with Trump’s win because the President made a bunch of pro-crypto promises during his campaign.

One particularly exciting promise was Trump’s plan to give the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, Gary Gensler, a crypto critic, the boot on day one. There’s also a lot of hope that Trump will have a few crypto enthusiasts in his team.

Lubin reckons Trump and his transition team are going full throttle. Despite what people may think of him, Trump’s really good at understanding popular trends and going for it, Lubin said. If this is true, it’s certainly good news for cryptocurrency firms in the US. They’ve been playing legal tug-of-war with the SEC and big crypto exchanges like Binance and Coinbase for years. There’s also a longstanding case with Ripple that began in December 2020.

The CEO also mentioned Consensys’ own legal battle with the SEC over its plans to regulate ETH as a security. Lubin feels their lawsuit ignited a rallying cry that was picked up by the legal community. Consensys had argued the SEC was trying to control the future of cryptocurrency by treating Ether as a security.

Some even say the SEC wanted to differentiate between Ethereum 2.0 and the older version of Ether. The SEC was like, okay, the old Ether can stay a commodity, but the new Ether is definitely a security, Lubin explained.

Unfortunately for Consensys, a Texas federal judge dismissed their lawsuit against the SEC in September. However, in a separate case, the SEC is claiming that Consensys has been acting as an unregistered broker and illegally offering securities via MetaMask Swaps.

Lately, Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, suggested that the future chair of the SEC should say sorry for the damage the agency has caused in the crypto space.