Judge 'harshly questions SEC' at Coinbase hearing

New York District Judge Katherine Polk Failla grilled the SEC in court on Wednesday, asking directly what constituted securities, equity pledges and how the principal issue doctrine applied to the case. Regulators sued Coinbase in June for allegedly operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing house. Coinbase has pushed back against the accusations, calling for the case to be dismissed and accusing regulators of taking an "enforcement regulatory" approach. According to the SEC’s complaint in June, the SEC said tokens including SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH and NEXO are securities. In court on Wednesday, Judge Failla asked the SEC whether the token issuers named in the complaint violated securities laws. "Well, not quite, your honor," the agency's attorney said. The lawyers added that those tokens mentioned in the complaint were code. Judge Failla said: "I'm laughing, sir, because your friends at the back table are saying the same thing, they want to know why we are here."