SEC drops lawsuit against Winklevoss twins’ Gemini cryptocurrency exchange

The Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped its lawsuit against Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

The Winklevoss twins were donors to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and also supported his family’s business ventures.

In a joint filing on Friday, the SEC and Gemini asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, which centered on the collapse of an investment product called Gemini Earn, with some investors losing access to their funds for 18 months.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Gemini in 2023 and accused the company of defrauding investors. To justify the SEC’s dismissal of the case, the new filing points to a 2024 settlement between New York and Gemini, where investors would eventually receive “one hundred percent of the crypto assets they lent.” […] Through Gemini Earn.”

This appears to be a larger pattern of leniency on the part of the Trump administration towards the cryptocurrency industry. The New York Times previously reported that the SEC either dismissed, paused, or reduced penalties in more than 60 percent of pending cryptocurrency lawsuits when Trump took office last year.

Gemini has also filed to go public.