Cryptocurrencies rallied Monday sending bitcoin prices above $63,000. A wide group of crypto stocks and bitcoin ETFs posted much larger gains, boosted after a federal judge on Friday dismissed charges against exchange Binance.
Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, attributed the early week rally to a federal-court decision from late last week. On Friday, Judge Amy Jackson of the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a portion of the Security and Exchange Commission's lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao.
Judge Jackson dismissed charges against Binance regarding secondary sales of unregistered securities for its BNB token and Simple Earn program, CoinDesk reported. However, the judge ruled that other charges against Binance could proceed, including its initial coin offering, ongoing sales for BNB, BNB Vault and staking services. The fraud charges and charges for failing to properly register can also proceed, Judge Jackson ruled.
The SEC sued Binance in June 2023, alleging that the exchange operated illegally in the U.S. through its affiliate, BinanceUS, and for a number of securities violations. Those charges followed a March 2023 suit from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which claimed that Binance violated trading and derivatives rules while operating as an unregistered exchange.
A hearing is scheduled for July 9.
Binance Ruling Is Boon For Crypto
"Late Friday, D.C. federal judge Amy Jackson dismissed charges against Binance for the secondary sales of unregistered securities, a ruling which cited Judge Analisa Torres' 2023 decision in the SEC's mostly losing case against Ripple Labs," Sigel of VanEck wrote to IBD. "Coupled with the likely listing of spot Ethereum ETFs, the SEC's initial hostility to proof-of-stake coins is being whittled away by the courts. This bodes well for the Coinbase suit and for our recently filed spot Solana ETF."
VanEck was among the eight firms that in late May filed to register ether ETF applications with the SEC. The SEC approved rule 19b-4 forms for the applications. The S-1 registration statements still need to be approved before the ETFs can officially debut.
Other Lawsuits Fly
The SEC filed a similar lawsuit against Coinbase in June 2023. That suit argued that Coinbase failed to properly register with regulators.
Coinbase on Friday filed two lawsuits against the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests, The Block reported. The lawsuits seek internal documents and communications related to previous investigations and industry rulings. In the suits, Coinbase accused the SEC, FDIC and Federal Reserve Board of using "every regulatory tool at their disposal to try to cripple the digital-asset industry."
Elsewhere Friday, the SEC sued Consensys and claimed the blockchain company acted as an unregistered broker via its MetaMask swaps and staking services, according to reports. MetaMask is one of the most-used digital wallets for ethereum and other blockchains. The SEC alleged that Consensys improperly generated millions in fees through MetaMask. The lawsuit also claimed that Lido and Rocket Pool's staking programs are also securities.
The SEC on June 21 ended its investigation into whether Ethereum 2.0 is a security, which Consensys touted as a major win. Consensys in April sued the SEC after receiving a Wells Notice from the regulator. The SEC in March issued subpoenas to multiple companies attempting to classify ethereum as a security, Fortune reported.
Bitcoin Price Action
Bitcoin on Monday traded above $63,200, gaining more than 2% over the prior 24 hours. The top crypto rallied as high as $63,715 before paring gains.
Bitcoin has soared more than 50% so far this year and on March 14 hit a record high of $73,798.
Ethereum surged Monday to $3,469. ETH hit a 24-hour high of $3,515 overnight. Ethereum leapt 51.7% in 2024 but is still trading below its 52-week high of $4,092 from March 12.
Among other cryptocurrency stocks, Coinbase jumped 5% Monday to power back above its 50-day moving average.
Spot bitcoin ETFs, including the iShares Bitcoin Trust, Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and VanEck Bitcoin Trust spiked nearly 5.5% Monday.
Marathon Digital and CleanSpark led bitcoin miners, rallying 13.7% and 12.4%, respectively. Riot Platforms swung 8.9% higher, followed by Core Scientific with a 5.9% gain. Hut 8 rose 1.7% Monday.
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