Some justices on the Supreme Court, including Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, may disagree with the SEC’s reading of the law.
Their future was in doubt as they fought for freedom. These brave freedom warriors had a hard time recruiting new members and were severely outnumbered. Their dedication to the liberation cause was their only weapon.
The SEC and banking authorities in the US are using litigation and an intimidating variety of regulatory measures meant to make compliance impossible in an effort to destroy this emerging business.
The Constitution and the language and legal ideas it contains give crypto a fighting chance. Their ideal government would include checks and balances between the three equal branches to prevent anyone from abusing its authority.
When facing an SEC lawsuit, Coinbase is at the forefront of the current Bitcoin battleground. The business responded to the case in June with a statement based on the “major questions doctrine.” This fundamental legal concept ensures that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is held responsible when it attempts to sidestep Congress’ role in our constitutional system by misusing outmoded and ambiguous laws.
The Supreme Court has emphasised the significance of the significant questions doctrine in recent landmark judgements that limited presidential overreach under the Obama and Biden administrations. This philosophy stresses the need of having congressional approval before an agency may regulate a matter of great national or political significance.
This is not a novel or unproven theory. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sought to control cigarettes by designating them as medications, but the Supreme Court ruled that this was an excess of the FDA’s power. While the court acknowledged that nicotine is a medicine, it argued that it did not belong to the class of palliative pharmaceuticals that Congress had in mind when established the FDA.
The EPA was stopped from going beyond its authority in the area of power plant pollution and establishing a national strategy on carbon emissions.
The most recent use of the significant questions theory was the Supreme Court’s rejection of Biden’s plan to cancel student debt. Coinbase’s general counsel Paul Grewal made the smart observation that the court’s finding would be the same if cryptocurrency were substituted for student loans.
Supporters of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler claim that the agency’s 1930s securities regulations can easily be updated to the digital age and crypto. If the SEC adapted to cryptocurrency in the same way that it did to the internet, this argument might have some merit.
