Key points to remember
- The SEC is suing Bittrex and its former CEO, William Shihara.
- The agency accuses Bittrex of operating an unregulated stock exchange, brokerage and clearing agency.
- The SEC also claimed that Bittrex had asked crypto projects to clean up public statements that could attract the attention of regulatory agencies.
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The SEC’s war on crypto rages on. The regulator today filed civil lawsuits against Bittrex for operating as a national securities exchange without being properly registered.
Refine problematic statements
Another crypto company has fallen prey to the predatory eye of the SEC.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission announcement today that he was billing crypto exchange Bittrex and former CEO William Shihara for allegedly operating an unregistered national stock exchange, broker and clearing agency. The SEC is also suing Bittrex’s foreign subsidiary, Bittrex Global, for failing to register as a national securities exchange.
The SEC claimed in its complaint that Bittrex has facilitated the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies that the agency considers securities, including OMG, DASH, ALGO, TKN, NGC, and IHT.
According to the SEC, Bittrex and Shihara have asked the teams behind these cryptocurrencies to clean up “problematic statements” they have made publicly in the past that they believe could attract the attention of a public body. regulatory agency, such as the SEC itself. Price predictions, profit expectations, and other investment-related conditions have been removed before assets can be listed on Bittrex.
“Today’s action, again, makes it clear that crypto markets are suffering from a lack of regulatory compliance, not a lack of regulatory clarity,” the SEC Chairman said. Gary Gensler. “As alleged in our complaint, Bittrex and the issuers it worked with knew the rules that applied to them, but went to great lengths to circumvent them by ordering candidate issuers to ‘clean up’ offering information indicating that some crypto assets were securities. ”
Global bittrex replied at the civil lawsuit claiming that he had never served US customers and had “gone to the trouble” of barring US residents from using the exchange. He also criticized the SEC for not seeking to engage with the company before suing. “Bittrex Global was willing to work productively with the SEC, as we do with all regulators, to explain our position. It has become clear that the SEC is not interested in such discussions.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this article, the author of this article owned BTC, ETH, and other crypto assets.