Major cryptocurrencies targeted as unregistered securities in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase continued their sharp declines. BNB, the Binance Smart Chain’s native token, dropped 5% in the last 24 hours to a five month low of $252, according to CoinDesk data. Algorand’s ALGO lost 8% over the same period, and Solana’s SOL slid 5.2%. Bitcoin has remained somewhat of a safe haven, but only on a relative basis. The cryptocurrency is down modestly over the past 24 hours, but still remains near a three-month low at $26,400.

(BNB 24-hour chart)

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) will continue operating its crypto staking service despite facing lawsuits from state and federal regulators over the program and several of its other offerings. “We're not going to wind down our staking service,” said CEO Brian Armstrong Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest Conference. “As these court cases play out, it's really business as usual,” he added. Armstrong noted that the exchange’s staking service accounts for about 3% of Coinbase’s overall net revenue. His comments came after the SEC on Tuesday sued Coinbase for a swath of violations, including allegations the company sold unregistered securities. A ten-state coalition led by the Alabama Securities Commission also took aim at the exchange, slapping Coinbase with allegations that the company’s staking program had violated various state securities laws.

As a private citizen in 2019, current SEC Chair Gary Gensler offered to serve as an advisor to Binance, lawyers for the exchange told SEC officials on June 4, according to a court filing yesterday. With Binance facing a suit from the SEC, the exchange’s attorneys argued that Gensler should recuse himself from the case because of this history. In March 2019, according to the Binance attorneys, Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao and Gensler had an in-person lunch meeting in Japan where they discussed the BNB token and Binance opening an exchange in the U.S. Gensler at the time “acknowledged the regulatory uncertainty" around the then quickly-growing cryptocurrency industry, they said. The two remained in touch after the meeting, and “Zhao understood that the now-Chairman was comfortable serving as an informal advisor," something that Gensler himself offered, according to the filing.

(Nansen)

Long position traders remain willing to pay a fee to short position traders for bitcoin and ether, with this so-called funding rate indicating that those crypto assets are bullishly positioned. Meanwhile, the CoinDesk Indices Ether Trend Indicator is signaling increased strength for the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Funding rates are periodic payments that traders on perpetual futures markets pay from one side of the trade to the other. This fee is determined by the difference between spot prices and futures contract prices. When bitcoin futures prices are higher than spot prices, traders with long positions pay a fee to traders with short positions.

Funding rates ensure that spot and futures prices for crypto assets converge, as they do in traditional derivatives markets. Positive funding rates indicate positive investor sentiment, while negative rates indicate the opposite.

- Omkar Godbole