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Investing.com – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday accused cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex Inc and its former CEO William Shihara of operating an unregistered national securities exchange, brokerage and clearing agency .
The SEC alleged in its lawsuit, which was filed in a U.S. District Court in Washington, that Shihara worked with crypto-asset issuers seeking to make their tokens available on Bittrex’s platform, to suppress statements that Shihara feared could lead regulators to treat these tokens as securities.
The SEC also accused Bittrex’s foreign subsidiary, Bittrex Global GmbH, of failing to register as a national securities exchange in connection with its operation of a single order book shared with Bittrex.
Bittrex Inc. said in a statement posted on Twitter (NYSE:) that securities are not offered or traded on its platform and that it does not offer products that are investment contracts.
The press release also judges that the decision of the SEC “is part of the broader crusade of its chairman Gensler to push cryptocurrencies out of the United States”.
The platform also specified that it had repeatedly attempted to communicate and collaborate with the Sec to comply with the regulations, without ever obtaining a response or guidance.
Bittrex thus judged that “the actions of the SEC will directly penalize US customers and employees” of the crypto industry, at the risk of putting the United States in a situation of “significant disadvantage in the development of blockchain technology, including including for applications beyond cryptocurrencies in the future. »
In a separate statement, Bittrex Global said it has no US customers and plans to “vigorously defend” the SEC’s allegations in court.
“Bittrex Global was founded on principles of security and compliance – and we are very proud of our global reputation as one of the oldest and most compliant exchanges in the world,” the company said.
It should be noted that Bittrex, headquartered in Seattle, had previously announced that it would cease operations in the United States effective April 30 due to “continuing regulatory uncertainty”. The company’s non-US operations are based in Liechtenstein.
The SEC complaint also alleges that Bittrex, from 2017 to 2022, earned at least $1.3 billion in revenue from investor transaction fees, among other things, while providing them services as a broker, exchange and clearing agency, all without registering such activities with the SEC.