Elizabeth Warren cited the frequent exchange crashes on Coinbase during a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
“Let’s say that last Monday, I took out the last sliver of my savings, I went on the crypto exchange Coinbase, I bought $100 worth of Ether, and then I woke up early on Tuesday morning, I saw that the market looked like it was beginning to tank and I thought I better sell right now, but when I tried to sell on Coinbase, the exchange was down,” said Warren on Tuesday.
The Massachusetts Senator presented the hypothetical to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler. While Gensler did not address this key feature of Coinbase’s services, he did say the company should register with the SEC—his most explicit remark on whether cryptocurrencies are securities.
“They haven’t yet registered with us, even though they have dozens of tokens that may be securities,” responded the chairman. “I think funding wise we could use a lot more people. I just have to be frank with you, I mean there’s 6,000 projects. And while some of those are commodities, many of them are securities under the law.”
Not only does Elizabeth Warren have a new dig at Coinbase, but she also boasted new verbiage: “Ether.” Perhaps she has educated herself on cryptocurrency. During a Senate hearing earlier this year, the Senator called Bitcoin a “lousy way to buy and sell things” and alleged cryptocurrencies produce more environment output than the Netherlands.
