OpenSea CEO vows to fight SEC

nft marketplace OpenSea has received a Wells Notice from the US SEC, indicating an intention to sue startup web3.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s crackdown on allegedly non-compliant crypto service providers has now focused on OpenSea, one of the first and largest ethereum (eth) digital collectibles trading platforms.

SEC investigators issue Wells notices as precursors to potential lawsuits, although this step does not always result in legal action.

Reacting to the news on August 28 and alerting the community, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer x.com/dfinzer/status/1828791832009953706″ target=”_blank” rel=””>saying The company is “ready to stand up and fight” against the SEC’s effort to stifle innovation and unfairly scrutinize thousands of creators.

We should not regulate digital art in the same way we regulate collateralized debt obligations.

Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea

Finzer echoed concerns within the crypto community regarding the SEC’s heavy-handed approach to cryptocurrencies and now non-fungible tokens (nfts), emphasizing that nfts are fundamentally different from investment contracts typically regulated by the Wall Street watchdog.

In a post on x, Finzer indicated that OpenSea plans to join contemporaries such as Coinbase, Consensys, Kraken, Robinhood and Uniswap in defending itself against SEC securities investigations and allegations.

Finzer and OpenSea also committed $5 million to a legal fund to support creators and developers affected by the SEC’s Wells Notice.

It would be a terrible outcome if creators stopped making digital art because of regulatory threats.

The SEC has brought litigation against a number of cryptocurrency-related entities over the past two years, including nft projects like Stoner Cats, owned by Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, but this was the first time federal prosecutors have scrutinized a digital collectibles trading venue.

<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter“>