SEC Agrees to Drop Enforcement Suit Against Cumberland DRW, Firm Says

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has agreed to drop its enforcement case against Cumberland DRW, the crypto trading arm of Chicago-based trading firm DRW, according to a Tuesday announcement from the company.

The SEC sued Cumberland DRW last October, accusing the firm of acting as an unregistered securities dealer and alleging it sold more than $2 billion in unregistered securities, naming tokens like Polygon (POL), SOL$184.04, ATOM$3.1722, ALGO$0.1815 and FIL$1.4909 as a “non-exhaustive” list of tokens the agency considered to be securities.

At the time the suit was filed, Cumberland DRW and its CEO Don Wilson pledged to fight the charges. In an interview with CoinDesk last October, Wilson said that his firm had tried and failed to register as a securities dealer with the SEC, and suggested that the lack of clarity for crypto companies under then-Chair Gary Gensler was a feature, not a bug of the agency’s regulatory approach.

Read more: Who’s Afraid of Gary Gensler? Not Don Wilson, the Trader Who Beat the Regulator Once Before

“This dynamic put the SEC in a position where they could say everyone is breaking the rule, and we’re just going to go after whoever we want to,” Wilson told CoinDesk. “[It] reminds me of ‘Atlas Shrugged.’ If everybody is breaking the law, they get to selectively harass whoever they want to.”

Just five months later, under the new leadership of Acting Chair Mark Uyeda, the SEC has completely reversed course. The agency’s decision to drop its suit against Cumberland DRW is the latest in a series of abandoned lawsuits: the SEC has also dropped its case against Coinbase, and agreed to drop its cases against ConsenSys and Kraken. It has also closed a multitude of probes into crypto companies, including Gemini, OpenSea, Robinhood Crypto and Yuga Labs. As with its ConsenSys and Kraken agreements, the SEC's agreement with Cumberland is pending approval from a majority of the three commissioners currently on the panel. The Commission voted to drop its Coinbase case last week.

“As a firm deeply committed to the principles of integrity and transparency, we look forward to continuing our dialogue with the SEC to help shape a future where technological advancements and regulatory clarity go hand in hand, ensuring tha the U.S. remains at the forefront of global financial innovation,” Cumberland said in its announcement.

A representative for Cumberland DRW declined to comment beyond the firm’s X post.

The SEC did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.