Ripple’s Legal Chief Extends Support To Coinbase in Response to US SEC’s Actions

The cryptocurrency community was rocked by news of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s move against Coinbase, the top cryptocurrency exchange in the country.

While many were eager to criticize the SEC, others seized the chance to attack the company, including many in the XRP community who were still upset that Coinbase had removed XRP from the Coinbase Wallet in the past. However, Stuart Alderoty, Chief Legal Officer, who is representing Ripple Labs and the other defendants, took to Twitter and said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Ripple executive David Schwartz also took to Twitter to criticize the SEC’s recent actions. Schwartz made his remarks in response to the Wells notice, which was recently sent to Coinbase by the SEC. 

“Unless you wanted to allow the founders, insiders, and early investors to profit and then shift much of the losses due to this litigation onto a large number of retail investors. I guess it could also just be incompetence that they didn’t notice this sooner,” he wrote on Twitter. 

He also questioned the SEC’s reason behind the latest enforcement motion. “If that is the SEC defending American buyers, think about in the event that they tried to harm them,” he wrote. 

The Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase Paul Grewal stated in a blog post, “Although we don’t take this development lightly, we are very confident in the way we run our business – the same business we presented to the SEC in order for us to become a public company in 2021.”

The notice comes at a time when the SEC is working harder than ever to govern the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry. After the announcement, Coinbase share prices dropped by over 13%.