Before the SEC sued Coinbase it told the exchange to delist all cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin and asserted all other cryptocurrencies are securities, Brian Armstrong has claimed in an interview with the Financial Times.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/539236

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wanted the exchange to delist the nearly 250 tokens on its platform prior to it filing a lawsuit against the exchange.

At the time, the SEC reportedly said it believes “every asset other than Bitcoin is a security,” said Armstrong.

“We said, well how are you coming to that conclusion? Because that’s not our interpretation of the law,” Armstrong added.

He recounted that the regulator said, “we’re not going to explain it to you; you need to delist every asset other than Bitcoin.”

It’s a similar view held by SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who claimed in a February New York Magazine interview that “everything other than Bitcoin” is a security under the agency’s remit.