June 7 Reuters Coinbase executives on Wednesday defended the company against a lawsuit brought by the U.S. securities regulator, saying the cryptocurrency sector lacks a clear set of guidelines.

The Securities and Exchange Commission SEC on Tuesday alleged Coinbase traded at least 13 crypto assets that are securities that should have been registered, including tokens such as Solana, Cardano and Polygon. The agency also said Coinbase was operating as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearinghouse.

Its not appropriate for the regulator to come back and do an enforcement action if we dont have a clear rulebook and clear guidance, CEO Brian Armstrong said in an interview on CNBC.

Theyre saying everything other than bitcoin is a security. Well, thats not our interpretation of the law.

Coinbase has been pushing the SEC to formulate new cryptospecific regulations since last year and in April asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to compel the regulator to respond. That court on Tuesday ordered the SEC to provide a response within a week.

Coinbase also sought to distance itself from rival exchange Binance, which was also served with an SEC lawsuit on Monday.

The SEC alleged Binance, the world39;s largest cryptocurrency exchange and its founder Changpeng Zhao, also sold cryptocurrency products without registering them as securities.

In addition, it accused Binance and Zhao of artificially inflating trading volumes, diverting customer funds and failing…