In a filing in federal court in Manhattan, Coinbase said the SEC had "violated due process, abused its discretion, and abandoned its own earlier interpretations of the securities laws" in asserting certain regulatory authority over the crypto exchange, and that it had no authority to pursue its lawsuit because the digital assets and services it objected to did not qualify as securities, accusing the agency of overreach.

Coinbase's filing disputed that transactions of the 12 tokens at issue in the SEC case met the definition of "investment contracts" under the Howey test and the exchange was operating as an unregistered broker, and argued the commission's challenges to its staking program "fail as a matter of law." The crypto firm has requested the court dismiss the case, arguing the SEC's enforcement action was "punitive" and represented an overreach in its authority granted by Congress.