Coinbase beats much of customer lawsuit over US token sales
COIN•Court dismisses most claims over token sales
NEW YORK, July 30 (Reuters) - Coinbase won the dismissal on Thursday of much of a lawsuit in which customers accused the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange of illegally selling securities without registering as an exchange or broker-dealer.
Customers sued over 60 tokens, including XRP and dogecoin, that they claimed were unregistered securities, seeking unspecified damages in the proposed class action.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan dismissed all claims based on "matched" transactions where Coinbase paired customers' buy and sell orders. These accounted for an estimated 99.97% of trading volume, equal to hundreds of billions of dollars.
The judge also said customers may pursue claims over "inventory" transactions, where Coinbase fills orders from tokens it owns. These accounted for the remaining 0.03% of trading volume, comprising at least $178 million in sales.
