A day after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Binance of deceptive tactics, conflicts of interest and evasion of law, the regulatory watchdog sued Coinbase in federal court in New York on Tuesday, alleging that it broke securities rules in the United States by acting as an unregistered broker.

Coinbase shares were tumbling 16.41% to $49.07 in premarket trading.

According to the SEC’s complaint, since at least 2019, Coinbase has made billions of dollars "unlawfully" facilitating the buying and selling of crypto asset securities and it intertwines the traditional services of an exchange, broke, and clearing agency without having registered any of those functions with the SEC.

Slamming Coinbase's staking-as-a-service program, the SEC said it did not register its offers and sales of this staking program as required by law.