SEC bins Robinhood probe amid crypto oversight shift

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 towards Robinhood for its crypto providers and exercise reporting, wrote chief authorized and compliance officer Dan Gallagher in a Feb. 24 weblog put up.

Robinhood acquired 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.

Instances towards behemoths like Coinbase and OpenSea have been reportedly dropped. The fee additionally paused litigation with Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.

Gallagher, who was thought-about for the White Home crypto czar position final 12 months, stated crypto’s long-awaited victory reaffirmed the business’s argument; that almost all digital property fall exterior the purview of federal securities legal guidelines.

“As a substitute of regulation by enforcement, it’s time for the SEC to show to regulation by regulation,” Robinhood’s CLO acknowledged, including that the main target ought to be “offering market individuals with readability and an acceptable regulatory framework for digital property.”

New SEC management shortly 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 almost all digital property have been securities usually pitted him towards the crypto business. Gallagher, different crypto bigwigs, and lawmakers criticized the SEC enforcement strategy. 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.  Performing chair Mark Uyeda’s new Crypto Task Force revisited staking in Ethereum funds, changed the fee’s crypto investigation unit, and iced a number of landmark circumstances towards digital asset operators.