CoinEx Faces Lawsuit for False Representation as Exchange and Fraudulent Practices
New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx, accusing the company of falsely presenting itself as an exchange by not registering as a securities and commodities broker-dealer in the state.
The 38-page petition filed by James in the New York Supreme Court on Feb. 22 accuses CoinEx of engaging in fraudulent practices and violating the state’s strict Martin Act, which governs securities regulation and anti-fraud laws in the US.
The lawsuit also alleges that CoinEx listed several tokens that are considered both commodities and securities, including AMP, LBC, RLY, and LUNA. James stated that CoinEx is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as required by New York law to sell tokens.
The lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit CoinEx from marketing itself as an exchange and operating in the state by blocking internet addresses and GPS location data from New York.
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CoinEx failed to comply with a subpoena from the Attorney General’s Office in December, which led to the suspicion that the company had engaged in fraudulent practices.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
