Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, faced the Securities and Exchange Commission in court on Monday in an effort to have a lawsuit brought against it by the regulator dismissed. Both parties were met with questions from the judge about why certain cryptocurrencies should be considered securities and subject to the SEC's rules.

During the hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia pressed both sides about whether BNB, BUSD and other assets traded on Binance meet or don't meet the criteria of the Howey test – a set of parameters used by the SEC to determine whether an asset is a security or not.

The SEC sued Binance Holdings and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao in June, accusing the crypto exchange of lying to customers, failing …