The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has reportedly ordered blockchain company Paxos Trust to stop the issuance of dollar-pegged Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin.
The New York regulator’s actions come shortly after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a wells notice to Paxos — a letter the regulator uses to tell companies of planned enforcement action. The notice alleged that Binance USD is an unregistered security.
The NYDFS has reportedly asked Paxos to stop creating more of its BUSD token. Paxos will continue to manage redemptions of the product, according to a Binance statement.
The most recent regulatory action on the third largest stablecoin comes in the wake of growing scrutiny around the crypto market. The SEC declared that crypto staking services violate securities law only last week, forcing Kraken to close its staking offering altogether. Coinbase is taking up the fight, claiming its staking products are not securities.
The securities debate in the crypto market is a long-running one and has been in focus ever since SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple, the issuer behind the XRP token. The three-year-running case has been watched closely but has reached no conclusion yet. Generally, if an investment of money is made in a business with the expectation of a profit to come through the efforts of someone other than the investor, it is considered a security.
The security allegations against a stablecoin, however, could prove to be another nail in the coffin for crypto. Cointelegraph reached out to law experts to understand how stablecoins which by name are stable and are often used as an onboarding tool in crypto could qualify as a security. One lawyer said that while stablecoins are meant to be stable, buyers may possibly profit from a range of arbitrage, hedging, and staking opportunities.
Blockchain attorneys told Cointelegraph that while the answer isn’t clear-cut, there is a case to be made if the stablecoin was created with the expectation of making money or if it is a derivative of security.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.