This Week in Web3: Coinbase Faces Class Action, World Liberty Financial Expands, and CZ Raises Concerns
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In a major legal setback for the leading crypto exchange, a U.S. judge has ruled that Coinbase has to face a class-action lawsuit from its own customers in New York. The lawsuit alleges that Coinbase was illegally selling unregistered securities, including popular coins like Solana and Polygon. The judge basically said that since customers can only trade through Coinbase, the exchange might be considered a "seller" under securities law - even though Coinbase claims it never actually owned those tokens.?
This isn't the first time Coinbase has faced legal troubles, as they're already battling multiple other lawsuits and a SEC lawsuit over similar issues. But they're still adamant that they don't deal in securities and are ready to take this latest case to court.
In other news, the Trump-backed DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLF) is making some serious power moves. They're setting up a strategic token reserve to manage their growing crypto stash, which now tops a whopping $365.5 million! The co-founder, Chase Herro said that the reserve will not only hold tokenized assets but also serve as a governance tool. Holders of WLF's $WLFI governance token will have a say in how the reserve is managed, potentially shaping the platform's investment strategy.
This move comes after WLF's recent crypto-buying spree. In January 2025, the platform invested a whopping $178.2 million across six major cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Wrapped Bitcoin. They made these strategic purchases during market dips, scooping up 94.94 wBTC for $9.84 million and 10.81 million TRX for $2.65 million.
And in a plot twist, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, the founder of Binance, has called out his own exchange's token listing process. Apparently, Binance usually announces new listings just four hours before they go live, and that's causing some serious market distortions. He said that savvy traders are exploiting this brief window by snatching up tokens on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) before the Binance listing. Then, they turn around and sell on the centralized exchange (CEX) to cash in on the price surge.?
CZ admits it's a tough problem to solve, but he's encouraging traders to be aware of these implications. The situation even escalated when Binance announced it would list the memecoin TST, which had previously been featured in a BNB Chain tutorial. Despite CZ's clarification that he didn't endorse the token, its price jumped 38% after the Binance listing, bringing its market cap to a staggering $185.9 million.
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