U.S. regulators have filed new charges against Kraken just nine months after settling previous charges.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Monday that it has filed charges against cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, months after settling previous charges against the company.

In a press release, the SEC claimed that Kraken’s parent company “operated Kraken’s cryptocurrency trading platform as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing organization.” The agency filed similar charges against rival exchange Coinbase earlier this year.

More immediately, the SEC alleges that Kraken commingled customer assets with company funds, including using accounts holding customer funds to pay its own bills. This approach, according to the SEC, “created a ‘significant risk of loss’ for customers.”

In the complaint, the SEC claims that the following cryptocurrencies are securities: Cardano (ADA), Algorand (ALGO), Cosmos (ATOM), Filecoin (FIL), Flow (FLOW), Internet Computer (ICP), Decentraland (MANA), Polygon (MATIC), Near (NEAR), OMG Network (OMG), and Solana (SOL).

"We allege that Kraken made a business decision to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from investors rather than comply with the securities laws. This decision resulted in a business model fraught with conflicts of interest that put investors' funds at risk," said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.

He continued, "Kraken's behavior of choosing illicit profits over protecting investors is something we see all too often in this space. Today we are both holding Kraken accountable for its misconduct and sending a message to others to comply."

In response to the action, Kraken said it would not list the securities and planned to “vigorously defend our position.”

“We are disappointed to see the SEC continue down the path of enforcement, which harms American consumers, hinders innovation, and undermines U.S. global competitiveness,” a Kraken spokesperson told reporters. “We believe congressional action is the most appropriate path to address regulatory ambiguity in the United States.”

The SEC previously brought charges against Kraken for its staking service, which provided returns to customers who locked and held certain cryptocurrencies on the exchange. Kraken agreed to pay $30 million to settle the previous charges and cease staking services in the United States. #Kraken  #指控