The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued the cryptocurrency exchange platform Kraken on Monday for operating as a stock brokerage platform without being registered as such.
The stock market regulator's action against the popular Kraken is the latest example of a heavy-handed strategy in the sector by the authorities, who in recent months have sued rival platforms Coinbase and Binance under similar arguments.
The SEC accuses the crypto platform of offering "traditional" securities brokerage services without registration, which "deprives investors of protections" and has led the company to "mix" its clients' money and crypto assets with its own. , according to a statement.
Specifically, he accused Kraken of "directly" using money from users' accounts to pay its operating expenses.
The director of the SEC's Enforcement division, Gurbir Grewal, indicated in a statement that Kraken follows a business model full of conflicts of interest and that it has raised "hundreds of millions of dollars" thanks to its failure to comply with the laws.
This past February, the SEC already had to pay $30 million in civil fines (about €27.4 million) and promised to suspend its "staking" services, an alternative to cryptocurrency mining that gives rewards in exchange. of their storage.
The regulator warned it would tighten its scrutiny following the collapse of cryptocurrency platform FTX late last year, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried was recently convicted of fraud and other economic crimes following a criminal trial in New York.
In recent months, there have also been accusations of celebrities, from Kim Kardashian to Jake Paul, for promoting crypto assets illegally, generally for not communicating to their followers that they were earning money in exchange for doing that advertising.$FTT $BTC #Kraken #SEC #exchange
