The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) has said in an amicus brief filed Tuesday giving its support to the SEC that the New York district court in charge of the case against Coinbase should not treat digital assets "as special."
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged in June the trading platform with allegedly operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency.
Coinbase defended itself by claiming that the digital assets and services it offered were not considered securities and that the agency was overreaching.
According to the brief filed by the association:
"The Court should reject Coinbase’s attempt to narrow and misapply the established legal framework in order to avoid being subject to the same regulatory obligations as all other participants in the Nation’s securities markets. And the Court should decline to treat digital assets as somehow special."
NASAA general counsel Vincente Martinez said the SEC's position is "neither novel nor extraordinary."