SEC Withdraws Suit Against Crypto Firm Gemini

Federal regulators have dropped a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.

In a court filing Friday (Jan. 23), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked a judge to dismiss the suit, stemming from the collapse of an investment product known as Gemini Earn.

The SEC argued that Gemini had settled a 2023 lawsuit brought by the state of New York, which had accused the company of defrauding investors. Since then, Gemini has settled with New York, with investors having received “one hundred percent of the crypto assets they had loaned to Gemini through the Gemini Earn program in kind.”

The SEC’s request is the latest in a series of steps the commission has taken to roll back earlier actions against the crypto industry filed under President Joe Biden.

Gemini, headed by billionaire twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, announced plans to go public last year with the goal of raising $316.7 million. The company said at the time it plans to market 16.7 million shares for $17 to $19 each in its initial public offering (IPO), giving it a market value of a little more than $2.2 billion.

More recently, Gemini’s affiliate Gemini Titan made its prediction markets platform available to customers in the U.S. The debut of the Gemini Predictions platform came one week after the company obtained a Designated Contract Market (DCM) license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In other crypto-related news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the obstacle payments present in making blockchain finance more mainstream.

“Stablecoins may move seamlessly on-chain, but converting them into something usable in the real economy continues to be a friction-heavy process,” that report said. “Cashing out remains expensive, slow, and dependent on banking relationships that are often fragile or jurisdictionally constrained. This is the gap that a new generation of startups is racing to close.”

Among them is Pomelo, which raised $55 million recently to help it launch a stablecoin-linked card. Instead of asking consumers or merchants to change behavior, companies like this are making crypto part of familiar payment formats.

“Similarly, WalletConnect Pay’s push to scale crypto payments at checkout reflects a broader recognition that technical capability is not the limiting factor,” the report continued. “User experience is. Cryptocurrency will not replace cards or real-time payments unless it can disappear behind interfaces that feel as seamless as what already exists.”