The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is officially backing off its investigation into NFT marketplace OpenSea — yet another example of the crypto industry benefitting from loose regulations under the Trump administration.
OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer shared the news late Friday. The announcement came on the heels of Coinbase’s announcement that the SEC was dropping its case against them.
“The SEC is closing its investigation into [Opensea]. This is a win for everyone who is creating and building in our space,” Finzer declared on X. “Trying to classify NFTs as securities would have been a step backward—one that misinterprets the law and slows innovation. Every creator, big or small, should be able to build freely without unnecessary barriers.”
Last August, Finzer revealed that OpenSea received a Wells notice warning of potential charges related to unregistered securities. OpenSea had vowed to fight back, and now, it seems the marketplace has come out on top.
Trump’s SEC: From crackdowns to crypto love letters
If all this sounds like a pattern, that’s because it is. President Donald Trump received millions in campaign contributions from the crypto industry heading into the 2024 elections, according to Bloomberg.
Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs banker turned regulatory bulldog, led the toughest crackdown the crypto industry has ever seen. Under his watch, the SEC came after everyone from industry titans like OpenSea, Coinbase and Ripple, the firm behind XRP.
Ripple and the SEC have been in a legal spat since 2020. The regulator accused Ripple Labs of selling unregistered securities, but Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP was not a security when sold to exchanges but determined that its institutional sales violated securities laws. She ordered Ripple to pay $125 million, significantly lower than the SEC’s initial $2 billion demand.
Both parties filed appeals, but the SEC may withdraw its case now that Trump nominated pro-crypto SEC commissioner Paul Atkins to be agency chair.
Essentially, the crypto crackdown under Gensler is now slowing down and the agency is taking a more laissez-faire approach, exemplified by the Coinbase and OpenSea announcements.
OpenSea’s SEA airdrop
Meanwhile, OpenSea isn’t just celebrating its SEC victory—it’s also throwing a party in the form of a SEA token airdrop. The OpenSea Foundation announced Thursday that it will reward active, loyal, and longtime users of its NFT marketplace and Seaport protocol with free tokens.
While details are still fuzzy on when the SEA token will actually launch, OpenSea traders are already rubbing their hands together at the thought of free digital loot. The company has also rolled out OS2, a new multi-chain trading platform.
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