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SEC Scrutinizing Crypto Firms Over Interest-Paying Services: Report
The U.S. regulator is considering whether these firms should file their offerings as securities.
By James Rubin
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:42 p.m. Published Jan 26, 2022, 8:41 p.m.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is probing crypto exchanges Voyager Digital and Gemini Trust and crypto lender Celsius Network as part of a wider investigation into crypto companies that pay interest on virtual token deposits, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.
- The agency is considering whether these firms should file their offerings as securities with the SEC, Bloomberg reported, but the agency is not accusing any of the firms of wrongdoing at this time.
- These companies can pay higher interest rates on these assets than most banks do on savings accounts by lending their tokens to other investors.
- Several states, including Kentucky, New Jersey, Alabama and Texas have separately noted their unease with this practice by Celsius and BlockFi, among other companies.
- Gemini, Celsius and Voyager said they are cooperating with the SEC probe, Bloomberg reported.
- In September, the SEC threatened to sue crypto exchange Coinbase over a proposed lending program. Coinbase subsequently dropped its plans for the lending service.
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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U.S. Senate's Warren asks for Trump-tied crypto probe as market structure bill drags
The influential Democrat is the most vocal critic of the crypto legislation, and she continues to throw rhetorical sand in the gears of the negotiation.
What to know:
- U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, is calling for a probe into DeFi platforms, especially on their relationship with the business interests of President Donald Trump.
- Warren's pushback comes as the Senate is still negotiating the details of a crypto market structure bill, a process that's now drifted into January.
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