Robinhood shares surged about 2.5% in premarket hours because the U.S. SEC ended its investigation into the crypto and fairness buying and selling platform.
The U.S. Securities and Change Fee doesn’t intend to pursue additional enforcement motion in opposition to Robinhood for its crypto companies and exercise reporting, wrote chief authorized and compliance officer Dan Gallagher in a Feb. 24 weblog publish.
Robinhood obtained the SEC’s discover of intent final Friday, marking one other crypto turnaround on the regulator in 2025. Certainly, the SEC has thrown within the towel in a number of digital asset-related bouts amid an ongoing change to regulatory tides.
Circumstances in opposition to behemoths like Coinbase and OpenSea had been reportedly dropped. The fee additionally paused litigation with Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.
Gallagher, who was thought of for the White Home crypto czar function final yr, mentioned crypto’s long-awaited victory reaffirmed the business’s argument; that the majority digital property fall outdoors the purview of federal securities legal guidelines.
“As an alternative of regulation by enforcement, it’s time for the SEC to show to regulation by regulation,” Robinhood’s CLO acknowledged, including that the main focus must be “offering market contributors with readability and an acceptable regulatory framework for digital property.”
New SEC management rapidly sorted the basket of enforcement actions left behind by former chair Gary Gensler. The fee filed some 120 cryptocurrency complaints throughout Gensler’s tenure, nearly twice the variety of circumstances opened by his predecessor, Jay Clayton.
Gensler’s view that the majority digital property had been securities usually pitted him in opposition to the crypto business. Gallagher, different crypto bigwigs, and lawmakers criticized the SEC enforcement method. U.S. courts chastised the SEC for being “ambiguous and capricious” in crypto regulation and lawsuits.
There’s a noticeable pivot towards a crypto-friendly stance on the securities watchdog after President Donald Trump’s return. Appearing chair Mark Uyeda’s new Crypto Process Drive revisited staking in Ethereum funds, changed the fee’s crypto investigation unit, and iced a number of landmark circumstances in opposition to digital asset operators.