This week the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a settlement in its enforcement action against Bittrex as well as a foreign affiliate. Bittrex agreed to a total penalty of $24 million. As part of the settlement, Bittrex neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, a frequent occurrence in these cases. The SEC had claimed that Bittrex operated as an unregistered broker, change, and clearing entity in handling digital assets.
At one point, Bittrex was one of the largest crypto exchanges offering services in the US.
Former Special Trial Counsel in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement Arthur Jakoby, now an attorney at Herrick, Feinstein, shared his thoughts with CI on the SEC’s settlement.
Jakoby explained that the settlement does not necessarily foreshadow an end result regarding the SECs’ actions against Coinbase and Binance:
“The Bittrex settlement does not portend similar SEC settlements for crypto exchange platforms such as Coinbase and Binance. Since Bittrex Global had already closed down its US operations and put it into bankruptcy, it will not be affected by this settlement. Thus, there was no need to fight the SEC to establish that its now-closed operations were securities compliant. Beyond the claims of operating an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency, Bittrex and [William] Shihara [former CEO of Bittrex] had also been charged with scrubbing its website of any statements that would suggest violations of U.S. securities laws. This settlement was undoubtedly influenced by these additional actions in order to escape regulatory scrutiny. The settlement, which does not require an admission of any facts by either Bittrex or Shihara, avoids any further SEC investigation of these allegations.”
Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world, with Coinbase in second place. Any decision by the SEC regarding both firms will have a sweeping impact on the industry … unless Congress acts first to provide clarity in digital asset trading.
