A court in the United States has ruled that the trading of certain crypto assets on secondary markets, such as crypto exchanges, are securities transactions — a position in opposition to that taken by Coinbase and the wider crypto industry.

The ruling comes in an insider-trading case against former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi, brother Nikhil Wahi and friend Sameer Ramani.

“Each issuer continued to make such representation regarding the profitability of their tokens even as the tokens were traded on secondary markets," the ruling reads, stating: "Thus, under Howey, all of the crypto assets that Ramani purchased and traded were investment contracts.”

The statement from the court is a default judgment — which is provided when a defendant does not appear in court or fails to …