Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong spoke at length on Wednesday about his initial reaction to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s lawsuit against his exchange.

The executive responded to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s claims about the market not needing more “digital currency,” and debated whether the SEC is acting in good faith. 

An Avalanche of Currencies

In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, Armstrong argued that Gensler was in no position to be “picking and choosing” the technology winners in the crypto space. “Let’s let the market decide that,” he said. 

Gensler spoke with CNBC  about the lawsuit on Tuesday, asserting that “digital currency” was already a thing before crypto. “It’s called the U.S. dollar, It’s called the euro or it’s called the yen, they’re all digital right now,” he said.

Meanwhile, he questioned the use cases of the 16,000+ coins available for trading through Coinbase’s self-custodial wallet, arguing that disclosures were necessary to make those clear. As Armstrong explained, however, the vast majority of those cryptos are only tradeable on decentralized exchanges – not Coinbase’s platform. 

“We’ve reviewed over 1000 assets in crypto – we reject over 90% of them because we felt they weren’t appropriate for our exchange,” he said. Nevertheless, he stressed that cryptocurrencies besides fiat currencies can be used for payments, remittances, political donations, and more. 

The SEC’s Tuesday filing named 13 assets <