The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is filing a lawsuit against Bittrex in a Washington court. Bittrex rejects the charges and accuses the SEC of trying to drive the cryptocurrency out of the US.
SEC goes to war with Bittrex
The ordeal that cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States are going through is far from over. Just days after announced the cessation of its activities in the United States due to regulatory uncertainty in the US market, the exchange Bittrex is being sued.
Indeed, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) a announced to file a complaint against the crypto exchange Bittrex in a Washington court. The SEC blames Bittrex for failing to register as an exchange, broker and clearing agency. Yet the exchange provided recognized services to all three types of entities, the SEC. It also states that Bittrex earned $1.3 billion between 2017 and 2022 by operating its unregistered business.
The complaint of the SEC also addresses Bill Shihara, former CEO of Bittrex between 2014 and 2019. Among other things, the SEC is accusing him of asking token issuers to remove compromising information before being listed on the platform Bittrex. This deletion of useful information has compromised regulatory control, the SEC.
In addition, the SEC’s complaint considers that certain tokens proposed by Bittrex on its platform are titles. This is the case of Omise go (OMG), algorand (ALGO), dash (DASH), tokencard (TKN), i-house token (IHT) and naga (NGC).
Bittrex has repeatedly chosen profits over investor protection.
Gurbir S. Grewaldirector at the SEC.
Bittrex denies SEC charges in full
Bittrex has officially responded to the SEC’s accusations. In a statement made public on April 17, the exchange said it was disappointed with the SEC’s complaint and was ready to fight it out in court. Bittrex claims to have only offered access to digital assets and never to securities or investments. The exchange also says to have contacted the SEC several times to find out which cryptocurrency was a security in order to remove it from its platform. Despite these multiple requests, the SEC never responded.
On several occasions, we asked them to tell us which digital assets on our platform they considered securities so that we could review and potentially remove them. They have refused to do so. Bittrex has always abided by the parameters of the law and we look forward to asserting our position in court.
Bittrex
In his statement, Bittrex considers that the complaint of the SEC is not an isolated act. It is part of the fight against crypto in the USA led by the president of the SEC Gary Gensler. Kraken, Kucoin, Binance, Beaxy…, are indeed in trouble in the USA.
Is the crypto market in the US experiencing continued regulatory uncertainty as Bittrex claims? Or is it rather a lack of regulatory compliance by crypto players in the US as SEC Chairman Gary Gensler says? The court decisions that will come out of the lawsuits initiated against the exchanges will tell us. What is certain is that the SEC’s actions are hurting Americans wanting to access crypto.
I dream of a world where every citizen has total control over themselves, including their finances. I believe that Bitcoin is one of the tools that will achieve this revolution. Since 2019, I am learning about this cryptocurrency and spreading the word around.
