The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially filed charges against Cumberland DRW, a cryptocurrency trading firm based in Chicago, related to multiple violations of securities regulations.
According to the SEC's statement, Cumberland operated as an unregistered broker-dealer in processing over $2 billion worth of Cryptoassets. The complaint emphasizes that Cumberland engaged in transactions of "Cryptoassets that were offered and sold as investment contracts on third-party Cryptoasset trading platforms."
The SEC also identified 5 assets that it believes to be securities, including Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), Cosmos (ATOM), Algorand (ALGO) and Filecoin (FIL). However, the agency stressed that this list of assets is not exhaustive.
Concurrently, Crypto.com, one of the largest Cryptoasset exchanges, has announced that they are suing the SEC after receiving a notice of upcoming legal action.
According to Mr. Jorge G. Tenreiro, the Acting Chief of the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (CACU) of the SEC, in an official statement:
"The industry tends to view the sale of Cryptoassets as the sale of commodities, but our allegations assert that Cumberland, along with the relevant issuers and investors, treated these transactions as investments in securities."
He also emphasized that Cumberland profited from brokering these assets without providing the necessary investor protections through the registration process.
While Cumberland has not yet issued an official response to the allegations, the company has stated on the social media platform X that the lawsuit will not impact their business operations or the liquidation of assets they provide.
