America Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Consensys, alleging that its MetaMask Swap service made it an unregistered dealer. This lawsuit from the SEC comes after Consensys’ lawsuit in opposition to the SEC in April.
MetaMask Swaps is a platform that helps facilitate trades of assorted cryptocurrency belongings by aggregating quotes from totally different decentralized exchanges and market makers. It permits the consumer to simply choose the perfect price in change for a small charge paid to Consensys.
The grievance alleges that Consensys, by means of the Swaps platform, has ‘collected fees worth over $250 million.’ It additionally claims that a few of these liquidity suppliers ‘may share a portion of the fees it charges investors.’
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In line with the grievance, Consensys ‘exercises further discretion over which crypto assets it makes available.’ It highlights that Consensys maintains a ‘token restriction policy’ that particulars belongings that it doesn’t allow trades in. Moreover, the SEC lists a collection of belongings it considers securities that Swaps helped allow trades in. These embrace MATIC, AMP, AXS, BNB, COTI, DDX, FLOW, HEX, LCX, NEXO, OMG, POWR, RLY, XYO, MANA, CHZ, SAND, and LUNA.
The grievance additionally alleges that Consensys’ ‘MetaMask Staking’ platform offered unregistered securities within the type of tokens for Lido and Rocket Pool. These so-called ‘liquid staking’ tokens allow customers to achieve entry to staking rewards with out immediately taking part in validation. The grievance claims that these schemes characterize funding contracts.
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