After the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected Coinbase's petition for clear cryptocurrency regulation on Friday, US Representatives Patrick McHenry and Tom Emmer criticized the SEC and its chairman Gary Gensler. Congressman McHenry commented on social media platform X that it is shameful that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler continues to refuse clarity for the digital asset ecosystem. If "the law is clear" supports his position, why does the SEC continue to fail in court? McHenry has been pushing for clear cryptocurrency regulation and will retire from Congress in January next year.<br>Another US Congressman, Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, also strongly criticized the SEC's rejection of Coinbase's petition. Emmer said that the policy of the US Securities and Exchange Commission is not to provide more transparency to the market, but to create chaos and undermine our great capital markets. This is wrong and clearly violates the SEC's responsibilities.

The SEC rejected Coinbase's petition for crypto rulemaking, marking yet another refusal to provide regulatory clarity for an industry that badly wants it.

Coinbase has officially raised legal questions against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for rejecting its petition for rulemaking starting in 2022. Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer, Paul Grewal, stated on X that "we have now filed with the Third Circuit to challenge the SEC's arbitrary and capricious denial of our petition to establish a crypto rule. We thank the court for its consideration once again." Grewal called this decision "arbitrary and capricious." Coinbase argued in its petition review that the SEC's rejection was "an abuse of discretion, contrary to law, and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act."

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has rejected a rule-making petition submitted by Coinbase (COIN.O).

On December 15th, William Williams of the Federal Reserve stated that we have not yet truly discussed interest rate cuts. The economy and inflation are still highly uncertain. We need to be prepared for further policy tightening. (Jinshi)

On December 14th, traders priced in for the first time a 150 basis point rate cut by the Federal Reserve in 2024. <br>

The suit was served via an alternate method, as process servers were unsuccessful in contacting Richard Heart in person for months.

Binance, Binance.US, and Changpeng Zhao have filed a reply to the SEC's lawsuit, arguing that the regulator did not meet the requirements of the "Howey Test." The filing states that the SEC did not show that the exchanges' U.S. customers had any contracts that would meet the definition of an "investment contract." Binance also pushed back against the SEC's adding the exchange's guilty plea with the DOJ and consent order with FinCEN, or Zhao's own DOJ plea, in the ongoing case. The filing argues that securities laws wouldn't apply the same way the Bank Secrecy Act or International Emergency Economic Powers Act did.

On December 13th, Binance submitted documents to the federal court in the District of Columbia, stating that the settlement agreement reached between Binance and the US DOJ and FinCEN is not substantively related to the SEC's charges against Binance, and that the SEC's supplemental briefing did not provide new and effective evidence in this case.

On December 13th, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas cited regulatory memorandum documents stating that BlackRock had its third meeting with the SEC on December 11th to discuss details of its physical Bitcoin ETF. The attendees of the third meeting included Rachel Aquirre, the head of BlackRock's US iShares products, and mostly lawyers.